THE CHRONICLES 
 OF AMERICA SERIES 
 
 ALLEN JOHNSON 
 
 EDITOi 
 
 UC-NRLF 
 
 WOOD ROW 
 
 A N D 
 
 T 
 
 : 
 
 
WOODROW WILSON AND THE WORLD 
 WAR 
 
TEXTBOOK EDITION 
 
 THE CHRONICLES 
 
 OF AMERICA SERIES 
 
 ALLEN JOHNSON 
 
 EDITOR 
 
 GERHARD R. LOMER 
 
 CHARLES W. JEFFERYS 
 
 ASSISTANT EDITORS 
 
WOODROW WILSON 
 AND THE WORLD WAR 
 
 A CHRONICLE OF OUR OWN TIMES 
 BY CHARLES /SEYMOUR 
 
 NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 TORONTO: GLASGOW. BROOK & CO. 
 
 LONDON: HJJM.PHREY M^LFORD 
 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY - PRESS 
 
REPLACING 
 
 ^ -? 2 i 3 f 2- 
 
 Copy right y 1981* by Yale University Press, 
 
E7U 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. WILSON THE EXECUTIVE Page 1 
 
 II. NEUTRALITY " 27 
 
 III. THE SUBMARINE " 47 
 
 IV. PLOTS AND PREPAREDNESS - 71 
 V. AMERICA DECIDES - 94 
 
 VI. THE NATION IN ARMS 11 6 
 
 VII. THE HOME FRONT " 150 
 
 VIII. THE FIGHTING FRONT - 192 
 
 IX. THE PATH TO PEACE " 228 
 
 X. WAYS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE u 254 
 
 XI. BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE OF 
 
 NATIONS? 281 
 
 XII. THE SETTLEMENT " 310 
 
 XIII. THE SENATE AND THE TREATY " 330 
 
 XIV. CONCLUSION 352 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 361 
 INDEX - 367 
 
 255 
 
 vii 
 
&? 
 
WOODROW WILSON AND THE WORLD 
 WAR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 WILSON THE EXECUTIVE 
 
 WHEN, on March 4, 1913, Woodrow Wilson entered 
 the White House, the first Democratic president 
 elected in twenty years, no one could have guessed 
 the importance of the role which he was destined to 
 play. While business men and industrial leaders 
 bewailed the mischance that had brought into 
 power a man whose attitude towards vested inter 
 ests was reputed none too friendly, they looked up 
 on him as a temporary inconvenience. Nor did the 
 increasingly large body of independent voters, dis 
 gusted by the "stand-pattism" of the Republican 
 machine, regard Wilson much more seriously; 
 rather did they place their confidence in a rein- 
 vigoration of the Grand Old Party through the 
 
S: WGODiRiOW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 progressive leadership of Roosevelt, whose enthusi 
 asm and practical vision had attracted the approval 
 of more than four million voters in the preceding 
 election, despite his lack of an adequate political 
 organization. Even those who supported Wilson 
 most whole-heartedly believed that his work would 
 lie entirely within the field of domestic reform; 
 little did they imagine that he would play a part in 
 world affairs larger than had fallen to any citizen 
 of the United States since the birth of the country. 
 The new President was fifty-six years old. His 
 background was primarily academic, a fact which, 
 together with his Scotch-Irish ancestry, the Pres 
 byterian tradition of his family, and his early years 
 spent in the South, explains much in his character 
 at the time when he entered upon the general politi 
 cal stage. After graduating from Princeton in 
 1879, where his career gave little indication of ex 
 traordinary promise, he studied law, and for a time 
 his shingle hung out in Atlanta. He seemed un 
 fitted by nature, however, for either pleasure or 
 success in the practice of the law. Reserved and 
 cold, except with his intimates, he was incapable of 
 attracting clients in a profession and locality where 
 ability to "mix" was a prime qualification. A 
 certain lack of tolerance for the failings of his fellow 
 
WILSON THE EXECUTIVE 3 
 
 mortals may have combined with his Presbyterian 
 conscience to disgust him with the hard give-and- 
 take of the struggling lawyer s life. He sought es 
 cape in graduate work in history and politics at 
 Johns Hopkins, where, in 1886, he received his 
 Ph.D. for a thesis entitled Congressional Govern 
 ment, a study remarkable for clear thinking and 
 felicitous expression. These qualities character 
 ized his work as a professor at Bryn Mawr and 
 Wesleyan and paved his path to an appointment 
 on the Princeton faculty in 1890, as Professor of 
 Jurisprudence and Politics. 
 
 Despite his early distaste to the career of prac 
 ticing lawyer, Wilson was by no means the man to 
 bury himself in academic research. He lacked the 
 scrupulous patience and the willingness to sub 
 merge his own personality which are characteristic 
 of the scientific scholar. His gift was for general 
 ization, and his writings were marked by clarity ol 
 thought and wealth of phrase, rather than by pro* 
 fundity. But such qualities brought him remark 
 able success as a lecturer and essayist, and constant 
 practice gave him a fluency, a vocal control, and a 
 power of verbal expression which assured distinc 
 tion at the frequent public meetings and dinners 
 where he was called upon to speak. Professional 
 
4 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 interest in the science of government furnished him 
 with topics of far wider import than the ordinary 
 pedagogue cares to handle, and he became, even as 
 professor, well known outside of Princeton. His 
 influence, already broad in the educational and not 
 without some recognition in the political world, was 
 extended in 1902, when he was chosen President of 
 the University. 
 
 During the succeeding eight years Wilson en 
 joyed his first taste of executive power, and certain 
 traits which he then displayed deserve brief notice. 
 Although a "conservative" in his advocacy of the 
 maintenance of the old-time curriculum, based up 
 on the ancient languages and mathematics, and in 
 his opposition to the free elective system, he proved 
 an inflexible reformer as regards methods of in 
 struction, the efficiency of which he was determined 
 to establish. He showed a ruthless resolution to 
 eliminate what he looked upon as undemocratic 
 social habits among the undergraduates, and did 
 not hesitate to cut loose from tradition, regardless 
 of the prejudice thereby aroused against him. As 
 an executive he evoked intense admiration and 
 virulent dislike; the Board of Trustees and the 
 alumni body were alike divided between enthu 
 siastic support and bitter anathematization of the 
 
WILSON THE EXECUTIVE 5 
 
 measures he proposed. What seems obvious is that 
 many graduates sympathized with his purposes but 
 were alienated by his methods. His strength lay 
 chiefly in the force of his appeal to democratic 
 sentiment; his weakness in complete inability to 
 conciliate opponents. 
 
 At the moment when the issue of the struggle at 
 Princeton was still undecided, opportunity was 
 given Wilson to enter political life; an ambition for 
 such a career had evidently stirred him in early 
 days and was doubtless resuscitated by his success 
 as a public speaker. While President of Princeton 
 he had frequently touched upon public issues, and 
 so early as 1906 Colonel George Harvey had men 
 tioned him as a possible President of the United 
 States. From that time he was often considered as 
 available for political office, and in 1910, with New 
 Jersey stirred by a strong popular movement 
 against boss-rule, he was tendered the nomination 
 for Governor of that State. He accepted and 
 proved an ideal candidate. Though supported by 
 the Democratic machine, which planned to elect a 
 reformer and then control him, Wilson won the ad 
 herence of independents and progressive Republi 
 cans by his promise to break the power of the boss 
 system, and by the clarity of his plans for reform. 
 
WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 His appeals to the spirit of democracy and mo 
 rality, while they voiced nothing new in an elec 
 toral campaign, rang with unusual strength and 
 sincerity. The State, which had gone Repub 
 lican by eighty-two thousand two years before, 
 now elected Wilson its Governor by a plurality 
 of forty-nine thousand. 
 
 He retained office in New Jersey for only two 
 years. During that period he achieved a high de 
 gree of success. Had he served longer it is impossi 
 ble to say what might have been his ultimate posi 
 tion, for as at Princeton, elements of opposition had 
 begun to coalesce against him and he had found no 
 means to disarm them. As Governor, he at once 
 declared himself head of the party and by a display 
 of firm activity dominated the machine. The 
 Democratic boss, Senator James Smith, was sternly 
 enjoined from seeking reelection to the Senate, and 
 when, in defiance of promises and the wish of the 
 voters as expressed at the primaries, he attempted 
 to run, Wilson entered the lists and so influenced 
 public opinion and the Legislature that the head of 
 the machine received only four votes. Attempts of 
 the Democratic machine to combine with the Re 
 publicans, in order to nullify the reforms which Wil 
 son had promised in his campaign, proved equally 
 
WILSON THE EXECUTIVE 7 
 
 futile. With strong popular support, constantly ex 
 ercising his influence both in party conferences and 
 on the Legislature, the Governor was able to trans 
 late into law the most important of the measures 
 demanded by the progressives. He himself summed 
 up the essence of the situation when he said: "The 
 moment the forces in New Jersey that had resisted 
 reform realized that the people were backing new 
 men who meant what they had said, they realized 
 that they dare not resist them. It was not the per 
 sonal force of the new officials; it was the moral 
 strength of their backing that accomplished the 
 extraordinary result." Supreme confidence in the 
 force of public opinion exerted by the common man 
 characterizes much of Wilson s political philosophy, 
 and the position in the world which he was to enjoy 
 for some months towards the end of the war rested 
 upon the same basis. 
 
 In 1912 came the presidential election. The 
 split in the Republican forces promised if it did not 
 absolutely guarantee the election of a Democrat, 
 and when the party convention met at Baltimore 
 in June, excitement was more than ordinarily in 
 tense. The conservative elements in the party were 
 divided. The radicals looked to Bryan for leader 
 ship, although his nomination seemed out of the 
 
8 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 question. Wilson had stamped himself as an anti- 
 machine progressive, and if the machine conserva 
 tives threatened he might hope for support from 
 the Nebraskan orator. From the first the real con 
 test appeared to be between Wilson and Champ 
 Clark, who although hardly a conservative, was 
 backed for the moment by the machine leaders. 
 The deciding power was in Bryan s hand, and as 
 the strife between conservatives and radicals waxed 
 hot, he turned to the support of Wilson. On the 
 forty-sixth ballot Wilson was nominated. With di 
 vision in the Republican ranks, with his record in 
 New Jersey for legislative accomplishment, and 
 winning many independent votes through a suc 
 cession of effective campaign speeches, Wilson 
 more than fulfilled the highest of Democratic hopes. 
 He received on election day only a minority of all 
 the votes cast, but his majority in the electoral 
 college was overwhelming. 
 
 The personality of an American President has 
 seldom undergone so much analysis with such un 
 satisfactory results; almost every discussion of Wil 
 son s characteristics leads to the generation of heat 
 rather than light. Indeed the historian of the fu 
 ture may ask whether it is as important, in this age 
 
WILSON THE EXECUTIVE 9 
 
 of democracy, to know exactly what sort of man he 
 was as to know what the people thought he was. 
 And yet in the case of a statesman who was to play 
 a role of supreme importance in the affairs of the 
 country and the world, it is perhaps more than a 
 matter of merely personal interest to underline his 
 salient traits. Let it be premised that a logical 
 and satisfactory analysis is well-nigh impossible, 
 for his nature is self -contradictory, subject to gusts 
 of temperament, and he himself has pictured the 
 struggle that has gone on between the impulsive , 
 Irish and the cautious Scotch elements in him.J 
 Thus it is that he has handled similar problems ~*# 
 in different ways at different times, and has pro 
 duced upon different persons diametrically opposed 
 impressions. 
 
 As an executive, perhaps his most notable char 
 acteristic is the will to dominate. This does not 
 mean that he is the egocentric autocrat pictured by 
 his opponents, for in conference he is apt to be tol 
 erant of the opinions of others, by no means dicta 
 torial in manner, and apparently anxious to obtain 
 facts on both sides of the argument. An unfriendly 
 critic, Mr. E. J. Dillon, has said of him at Paris that 
 "he was a very good listener, an intelligent ques 
 tioner, and amenable to argument whenever he felt 
 
10 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 free to give practical effect to his conclusions." 
 Similar evidence has been offered by members of 
 his Cabinet. But unquestionably, in reaching a 
 conclusion he resents pressure and he permits no 
 one to make up his mind for him; he is, said the 
 German Ambassador, "a recluse and lonely work 
 er." One of his enthusiastic admirers has written: 
 "Once in possession of every fact in the case, the 
 President withdraws, commences the business of 
 consideration, comparison, and assessment, and 
 then emerges with a decision." From such a deci 
 sion it is difficult to shake him and continued op 
 position serves merely to stiffen his resolution. 
 Wherever the responsibility is his, he insists upon 
 the finality of his judgment. Those who have 
 worked with him have remarked upon his eager 
 ness, once he has decided a course of action, to 
 carry it into practical effect. The President of the 
 Czecho-Slovak Republic, Thomas G. Masaryk, 
 said that of all the men he had met, "your vision 
 ary, idealistic President is by far and away the 
 most intensely practical." One of the Big Four at 
 Paris remarked: "Wilson works. The rest of us 
 play, comparatively speaking. We Europeans 
 can t keep up with a man who travels a straight 
 path with such a swift stride, never looking to right 
 
WILSON THE EXECUTIVE 11 
 
 or left." But with all his eagerness for practical 
 effect he is notably less efficient in the execution 
 than in the formation of policies. 
 
 Wilson lacks, furthermore, the power of quick 
 decision which is apt to characterize the masterful 
 executive. He is slow to make up his mind, a trait 
 that results partly, perhaps, from his Scotch blood 
 and partly from his academic training. Except for 
 his steadfast adherence to what he regards as basic 
 principles, he might rightly be termed an opportu 
 nist. For he is prone to temporize, anxious to pre 
 vent an issue from approaching a crisis, evidently 
 in the hope that something may "turn up" to im 
 prove the situation and obviate the necessity of 
 conflict. "Watchful waiting" in the Mexican 
 crises and his attitude towards the belligerents dur 
 ing the first two years of the European war are 
 cases in point. There are instances of impulsive 
 action on his part, when he has not waited for ad 
 vice or troubled to acquire exact knowledge of the 
 facts underlying a situation, but such occasions 
 have been infrequent. 
 
 Wilson s dislike of advice has been widely adver 
 tized. It is probably closer to the truth to say that 
 he is naturally suspicious of advisers unless he is 
 certain that their basic point of view is the same as 
 
12 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 his own. This is quite different from saying that he 
 wants only opinions that coincide with his own and 
 that he immediately dispenses with advisers who 
 disagree with him. Colonel House, for example, 
 who for five years exerted constant influence on his 
 policy, frequently advanced opinions quite at vari 
 ance from those of the President, but such differ 
 ences did not weaken House s influence inasmuch as 
 Wilson felt that they were both starting from the 
 same angle towards the same point. Prejudiced 
 though he seemed to be against "financiers," Wil 
 son took the opinions of Thomas W. Lamont at 
 Paris, because the underlying object of both, the 
 acquisition of a secure peace, was identical. It is 
 true, however, that with the exception of Colonel 
 House, Wilson s advisers have been in the main 
 purveyors of facts rather than colleagues in the 
 formation of policies. Wilson has generally been 
 anxious to receive facts which might help him to 
 build his policy, as will be attested by those who 
 worked with him at Paris. 1 But he was less inter- 
 
 1 Mr. Lamont says of the President at Paris : " I never saw a man 
 more ready and anxious to consult than he. . . . President Wil 
 son did not have a well-organized secretarial staff. He did far too 
 much of the work himself, studying until late at night papers and 
 iocuments that he should have largely delegated to some discreet 
 aides. He was by all odds, the hardest worked man at the Con 
 ference; but the failure to delegate more of his work was not due 
 
WILSON THE EXECUTIVE IS 
 
 ested in the opinions of his advisers, especially 
 when it came to principles and not details, for he 
 decides principles for himself. In this sense his 
 Cabinet was composed of subordinates rather than 
 counselors. Such an attitude is, of course, charac 
 teristic of most modern executives and has been 
 intensified by war conditions. The summary dis 
 regard of Lansing, shown by Wilson at Paris, 
 was less striking than the snubbing of Balfour by 
 Lloyd George, or the cold brutality with which 
 Clemenceau treated the other French delegates. 
 
 General conviction of Wilson s autocratic nature 
 has been intensified by his choice of assistants, who 
 have not as a rule enjoyed public confidence. He 
 debarred himself from success in the matter of 
 appointments, in the first place, by limiting his 
 range of choice through unwillingness to have 
 about him those who did not share his point of 
 view. It is more epigrammatic than exact to say 
 that he was the sole unit in the Government giving 
 
 to any inherent distrust that he had of men and certainly not to 
 any desire to run the whole show himself but simply to the lack 
 of facility in knowing how to delegate work on a large scale. In 
 execution we all have a blind spot in some part of our eye. Presi 
 dent Wilson s was in his inability to use men; an inability, mind 
 you, not a refusal. On the contrary, when any of us volunteered 
 or insisted upon taking responsibility off his shoulders he was 
 delighted." 
 
14 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 value to a row of ciphers, for his Cabinet, as a 
 whole, was not composed of weak men. But the 
 fact that the members of his Cabinet accepted im 
 plicitly his firm creed that the Cabinet ought to be 
 an executive and not a political council, that it de 
 pended upon the President s policy, and that its 
 main function should be merely to carry that policy 
 into effect, gave to the public some justification for 
 its belief that Wilson s was a "one-man" Govern 
 ment. This belief was further intensified by the 
 President s extreme sensitiveness to hostile criti 
 cism, which more than anything else hindered frank 
 interchange of opinion between himself and strong 
 personalities. On more than one occasion he seemed 
 to regard opposition as tantamount to personal 
 hostility, an attitude which at times was not en 
 tirely unjustified. In the matter of minor appoint 
 ments Wilson failed generally of success because 
 he consistently refused to take a personal interest, 
 leaving them to subordinates and admitting that 
 political necessities must go far to determine the 
 choice. Even in such an important problem as the 
 appointment of the Peace Commission the Presi 
 dent seems to have made his selection almost at 
 haphazard. Many of his war appointments proved 
 ultimately to be wise. But it is noteworthy that 
 
WILSON THE EXECUTIVE 15 
 
 such men as Garfield, Baruch, and McCormick, 
 who amply justified their choice, were appointed 
 because Wilson knew personally their capacity and 
 not because of previous success along special lines 
 which would entitle them to public confidence. 
 
 The obstinacy of the President has become pro 
 verbial. The square chin, unconsciously protruded 
 in argument, indicates definitely his capacity, as a 
 British critic has put it, "to dig his toes in and hold 
 on." On matters of method, however, where a 
 basic principle is not involved, he is flexible. Ac 
 cording as you approve or disapprove of him, he is 
 "capable of development" or "inconsistent." 
 Thus he completely changed front on the question 
 af preparedness from 1914 to 1916. When the 
 question of the initiative and referendum arose in 
 Oregon, his attitude was the reverse of what it had 
 been as professor of politics. When matters of 
 detail are under discussion, he has displayed much 
 willingness for and some skill in compromise, as 
 was abundantly illustrated at Paris. But when he 
 thinks that a principle is at stake, he prefers to 
 accept any consequences, no matter how disastrous 
 to his policy; witness his refusal to accept the 
 Lodge reservation on Article X of the League 
 Covenant 
 
16 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 All those included within the small circle of Wil 
 son s intimates attest the charm and magnetism of 
 his personality. The breadth of his reading is re 
 flected in his conversation, which is enlivened by 
 anecdotes that illustrate his points effectively and 
 illumined by a sense of humor which some of his 
 friends regard as his most salient trait. His man 
 ner is marked by extreme courtesy and, in view of 
 the fixity of his opinions, a surprising lack of 
 abruptness or dogmatism. But he has never been 
 able to capitalize such personal advantages in his 
 political relations. Apart from his intimates he is 
 shy and reserved. The antithesis of Roosevelt, 
 who loved to meet new individualities, Wilson has 
 the college professor s shrinking from social con 
 tacts, and is not at ease in the presence of those 
 with whom he is not familiar. Naturally, there 
 fore, he lacks completely Roosevelt s capacity to 
 make friends, and there is in him no trace of his 
 predecessor s power to find exactly the right com 
 pliment for the right person. Under Roosevelt the 
 WTiite House opened its doors to every one who 
 could bring the President anything of interest, 
 whether in the field of science, literature, politics, 
 or sport; and the Chief Magistrate, no matter who 
 his guest, instantly found a common ground for 
 
WILSON THE EXECUTIVE 17 
 
 discussion. That capacity Wilson did not possess. 
 Furthermore his health was precarious and he was 
 physically incapable of carrying the burden of the 
 constant interviews that characterized the life of 
 his immediate predecessors in the presidential 
 office. He lived the life of a recluse and rarely re 
 ceived any one but friends of the family at the 
 White House dinner table. 
 
 WTiile he thus saved himself from the social inter 
 course which for Roosevelt was a relaxation but 
 which for him would have proved a nervous and 
 physical drain, Wilson deprived himself of the po 
 litical advantages that might have been derived 
 from more extensive hospitality. He was unable 
 to influence Congressmen except by reason of his 
 authority as head of the party or nation. He lost 
 many a chance of removing political opposition 
 through the personal appeal which is so flattering 
 and effective. He seems to have thought that if 
 his policy was right in itself, Congressmen ought 
 to vote for it, without the satisfaction of personal 
 arguments, a singular misappreciation of human 
 nature. The same was true of his relations with 
 the Washington correspondents; he was never 
 able to establish a man to man basis of inter- 
 course. This incapacity in the vital matter of 
 
18 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 human contacts was, perhaps, his greatest politi 
 cal weakness. If he had been able to arouse warm 
 personal devotion in his followers, if he could 
 have inflamed them with enthusiasm such as 
 that inspired by Hoosevelt, rather than mere ad 
 miration, Wilson would have found his political 
 task immeasurably lightened. It is not surprising 
 that his mistakes in tactics should have been so 
 numerous. His isolation and dependence upon 
 tactical advisers, such as Tumulty and Burleson, 
 lacking broad vision, led him into serious errors, 
 most of which such as his appeal for a Democra 
 tic Congress in 1918, his selection of the person 
 nel of the Peace Commission, his refusal to compro 
 mise with the "mild reservationist Senators" in 
 the summer of 1919 were committed, significant 
 ly, when he was not in immediate contact with 
 Colonel House. 
 
 The political strength of Wilson did not result 
 primarily from intellectual power. His mind is 
 neither profound nor subtle. His serious writings 
 are sound but not characterized by originality, nor 
 in his policies is there anything to indicate creative 
 genius. He thinks straight and possesses the abil 
 ity to concentrate on a single line of effort. He is 
 skillful in catching an idea and adapting it to his 
 
WILSON THE EXECUTIVE 19 
 
 purposes. Combined with his power of expression 
 and his talent for making phrases, such qualities 
 were of great assistance to him. But the real 
 strength of the President lay rather in his gift of 
 sensing what the common people wanted and his 
 ability to put it into words for them. Few of his 
 speeches are great; many of them are marred by 
 tactless phrases, such as "too proud to fight" and 
 "peace without victory." But nearly all of them 
 express honestly the desires of the masses. His 
 strength in New Jersey and the extraordinary effect 
 produced in Europe by his war speeches might be 
 cited as evidence of this peculiar power. He sought 
 above everything to catch the trend of inarticulate 
 rather than vociferous opinion. If one objects that 
 his patience under German outrages was not truly 
 representative, we must remember that opinion 
 was slow in crystallizing, that his policy was en 
 dorsed by the election of 1916, and that when he 
 finally advocated war in April, 1917, the country 
 entered the struggle practically a unit. 
 
 But it is obvious that, however much political 
 strength was assured the President by his instinc 
 tive appreciation of popular feeling, this was 
 largely offset by the gaucherie of his political tac 
 tics. He had a genius for alienating persons who 
 
20 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 should have supported him and who agreed in 
 general with the broad lines of his policies. Few 
 men in public life have so thoroughly aroused the 
 dislike of "the man in the street." Admitting that 
 much of Wilson s unpopularity resulted from mis^ 
 understanding, from the feeling that he was a dif 
 ferent sort, perhaps a "highbrow," the degree of 
 dislike felt for him becomes almost inexplicable in 
 the case of a President who, from all the evidence, 
 was willing to sacrifice everything for what he con 
 sidered to be the benefit of the common man. He 
 might almost repeat Robespierre s final bitter and 
 puzzled phrase: "To die for the people and to be 
 abhorred by them." So keen was the irritation 
 aroused by Wilson s methods and personality that 
 many a citizen stated frankly that he preferred to 
 see Wilsonian policies which he approved meet de 
 feat, rather than see them carried to success by 
 Wilson. This executive failing of the President was 
 destined to jeopardize the greatest of his policies and 
 to result in the personal tragedy of Wilson himself. 
 Certain large political principles stand out in 
 Wilson s writings and career as Governor and Presi 
 dent. Of these the most striking, perhaps, is his 
 conviction that the President of the United States 
 must be something more than a mere executive 
 
WILSON THE EXECUTIVE 21 
 
 superintendent. The entire responsibility for the 
 administration of government, he believed, should 
 rest upon the President, and in order to meet that 
 responsibility, he must keep the reins of control in 
 his own hands. In his first essays and in his later 
 writings Wilson expressed his disgust with the sys 
 tem of congressional committees which threw enor 
 mous power into the hands of irresponsible profes 
 sional politicians, and called for a Tresident who 
 would break that system and exercise greater di 
 rective authority. For a time he seemed, under the 
 influence of Bagehot, to have believed in the feasi 
 bility of introducing something like the parliamen 
 tary system into the government of the United 
 States. To the last he regarded the President as a 
 sort of Prime Minister, at the head of his party in 
 the Legislature and able to count absolutely upon 
 its loyalty. More than this, he believed that the 
 President should take a large share of responsibility 
 for the legislative programme and ought to push 
 this programme through by all means at his dis 
 posal. Such a creed appeared in his early writings 
 and was largely carried into operation during his 
 administration. We find him bringing all possi 
 ble pressure upon the New Jersey Legislature in 
 order to redeem his campaign pledges. When 
 
22 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 elected President, he went directly to Congress 
 with his message, instead of sending it to be read. 
 Time and again he intervened to forward his special 
 legislative interests by direct influence. 
 
 Both in his writings and in his actions Wilson has 
 
 always advocated government by party. Theoreti- 
 
 t 
 
 cally and in practice he has been opposed to coali 
 tion government, for, in his belief, it divides re 
 sponsibility. Although by no means an advocate 
 of the old-type spoils system, rewards for party ser 
 vice seem to him essential. Curiously enough, 
 while insisting that the President is the leader of 
 his party like a Prime Minister, he has also de 
 scribed him, with an apparent lack of logic, as the 
 leader of the country. Because Wilson has thus 
 confused party and people, it is easy to understand 
 why he has at times claimed to represent the nation 
 when, in reality, he was merely representing parti 
 san views. Such an attitude is naturally irritating 
 to the Opposition and explains something of the 
 virulence that characterized the attacks made upon 
 him in 1918 and later. 
 
 Wilson s political sentiments are tinged by a 
 constant and intense interest in the common man. 
 More than once he has insisted that it was more 
 important to know what was said by the fireside 
 
WILSON THE EXECUTIVE 23 
 
 than what was said in the council chamber. His 
 strongest political weapon, he believes, has been 
 the appeal over the heads of politicians to pub 
 lic opinion. His dislike of cliques and his strong 
 prejudice against anything that savors of special 
 privilege shone clear in his attack upon the Prince 
 ton club system, and the same light has not infre 
 quently dazzled his vision as President. Thus, 
 while by no means a radical, he instinctively turned 
 to the support of labor in its struggles with capital 
 because of the abuse of its privilege by capital in 
 the past and regardless of more recent abuse of its 
 power by labor. Similarly at the Peace Conference 
 his sympathies were naturally with every weak 
 state and every minority group. 
 
 Such tendencies may have been strengthened by 
 the intensity of his religious convictions. There 
 have been few men holding high office in recent 
 times so deeply and constantly affected by Chris 
 tian faith as Woodrow Wilson. The son of a 
 clergyman and subjected during his early years to 
 the most lively and devout sort of Presbyterianism, 
 he preserved in his own family circle, in later years, 
 a similar atmosphere. Nor was his conviction of 
 the immanence and spiritual guidance of the Deity 
 ever divorced from his professional and public life. 
 
24 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 We can discover in his presidential speeches many 
 indications of his belief that the duties he had 
 undertaken were laid upon him by God and that 
 he might not deviate from what seemed to him the 
 straight and appointed path. There is something 
 reminiscent of Calvin in the stern and unswerving 
 determination not to compromise for the sake of 
 ephemeral advantage. This aspect of Wilson has 
 been caught by a British critic, J. M. Keynes, who 
 describes the President as a Nonconformist minis 
 ter, whose thought and temperament were essen 
 tially theological, not intellectual, "with all the 
 strength and weakness of that manner of thought, 
 feeling, and expression." The observation is exact, 
 although it does not in itself completely explain 
 Wilson. Certainly nothing could be more charac 
 teristic of the President than the text of a Bacca 
 laureate sermon which he preached t Princeton in 
 1907: "And be ye not conformed to this world." 
 He believed with intensity that each individual 
 must set up for himself a moral standard, which he 
 must rigidly maintain regardless of the opinions of 
 the community. 
 
 Entirely natural, therefore, is the emphasis v hich 
 he has placed, whether as President of Princeton 
 or of the United States, upon moral rather than 
 
WILSON THE EXECUTIVE 25 
 
 material virtues. This, indeed, has been the es 
 sence of his political idealism. Such an emphasis 
 has been for him at once a source of political 
 strength and of weakness. The moralist unques 
 tionably secures wide popular support; but he also 
 wearies his audience, and many a voter has turned 
 from Wilson in the spirit that led the Athenian to 
 vote for the ostracism of Aristides, because he was 
 tired of hearing him called "the Just." Whatever 
 the immediate political effects, the country owes 
 to Wilson a debt, which historians will doubtless 
 acknowledge, for his insistence that morality must 
 go hand in hand with public policy, that as with 
 individuals, so with governments, true greatness 
 is won by service rather than by acquisition, by 
 sacrifice rather than by aggression. Wilson and 
 Treitschke are at opposite poles. 
 
 During his academic career Wilson seems to 
 have displayed little interest in foreign affairs, and 
 his knowledge of European politics, although suffi 
 cient for him to produce an admirable handbook on 
 governments, including foreign as well as our own, 
 was probably not profound. During his first year 
 in the White House, he was typical of the Demo 
 cratic party, which then approved the political 
 isolation of the United States, abhorred the kind of 
 
26 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 i commercial imperialism summed up in the phrase 
 "dollar diplomacy," and apparently believed that 
 the essence of foreign policy was to keep one s own 
 hands clean. The development of Wilson from 
 this parochial point of view to one which centers his 
 whole being upon a policy of unselfish international 
 service, forms, to a large extent, the main thread of 
 the narrative which follows. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 NEUTRALITY 
 
 DESPITE the wars and rumors of wars in Europe 
 after 1910, few Americans perceived the gathering 
 of the clouds, and probably not one in ten thousand 
 felt more than an ordinary thrill of interest on the 
 morning of June 29, 1914, when they read that the 
 Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria had been 
 assassinated. Nor, a month later, when it became 
 obvious that the resulting crisis was to precipitate 
 another war in the Balkans, did most Americans 
 realize that the world was hovering on the brink of 
 momentous events. Not even when the most dire 
 forebodings were realized and the great powers of 
 Europe were drawn into the quarrel, could America 
 appreciate its significance. Crowds gazed upon the 
 bulletin boards and tried to picture the steady 
 advance of German field-gray through the streets 
 of Liege, asked their neighbors what were these 
 French 75 s, and endeavored to locate Mons and 
 
 27 
 
28 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Verdun on inadequate maps. Interest could not 
 be more intense, but it was the interest of the 
 moving-picture devotee. Even the romantic voy 
 age of the Kronprinzessin Cecilie with her cargo of 
 gold, seeking to elude the roving British cruisers, 
 seemed merely theatrical. It was a tremendous 
 show and we were the spectators. Only the clos 
 ing of the Stock Exchange lent an air of reality to 
 the crisis. 
 
 It was true that the Spanish War had made of 
 the United States a world power, but so firmly 
 rooted in American minds was the principle of com 
 plete political isolation from European affairs that 
 the typical citizen could not imagine any cataclysm 
 on the other side of the Atlantic so engrossing as 
 to engage the active participation of his country. 
 The whole course of American history had deep 
 ened the general feeling of aloofness from Europe 
 and heightened the effect of the advice given by the 
 first President when he warned the country to 
 avoid entangling alliances. In the early nineteenth 
 century the United States was a country apart, for 
 in the days when there was neither steamship nor 
 telegraph the Atlantic in truth separated the New 
 World from the Old . After the close of the second 
 war of independence," in 1815, the possibility of 
 
NEUTRALITY 29 
 
 foreign complications seemed remote. The atten 
 tion of the young nation was directed to domestic 
 concerns, to the building up of manufactures, to the 
 extension of the frontiers westward. The Ameri 
 can nation turned its back to the Atlantic. There 
 was a steady and welcome stream of immigrants 
 from Europe, but there was little speculation or 
 interest as to its headwaters. 
 
 Governmental relations with European states 
 were disturbed at times by crises of greater or less 
 importance. The proximity of the United States 
 to and interest in Cuba compelled the Government 
 to recognize the political existence of Spain; a 
 French army was ordered out of Mexico when it 
 was felt to be a menace; the presence of immigrant 
 Irish in large numbers always gave a note of un 
 certainty to the national attitude towards Great 
 Britain. The export of cotton from the Southern 
 States created industrial relations of such impor 
 tance with Great Britain that, during the Civil War, 
 after the establishment of the blockade on the 
 Confederate coast, wisdom and forbearance were 
 needed on both sides to prevent the breaking out 
 of armed conflict. But during the last third of the 
 century, which was marked in this country by an 
 extraordinary industrial evolution and an increased 
 
SO WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 interest in domestic administrative issues, the atti 
 tude of the United States towards Europe, except 
 during the brief Venezuelan crisis and the war with 
 Spain, was generally characterized by the indiffer 
 ence which is the natural outcome of geographical 
 separation. 
 
 In diplomatic language American foreign policy, 
 so far as Europe was concerned, was based upon 
 the principle of "non-intervention." The right to 
 manage their affairs in their own way without in 
 terference was conceded to European Governments 
 and a reciprocal attitude was expected of them. 
 The American Government followed strictly the 
 purpose of not participating in any political ar 
 rangements made between European states regard 
 ing European issues. Early in the life of the nation 
 Jefferson had correlated the double aspect of this 
 policy: "Our first and fundamental maxim," he 
 said, "should be never to entangle ourselves in the 
 broils of Europe; our second, never to suffer Europe 
 to intermeddle with cis- Atlantic affairs." The influ 
 ence of John Quincy Adams crystallized this double 
 policy in the Monroe Doctrine, which, as compen 
 sation for denying to European states the right to 
 intervene in American politics, sacrificed the gener 
 ous sympathies of many Americans, among them 
 
NEUTRALITY 31 
 
 President Monroe himself, with the republican 
 movements across the Atlantic. With the con 
 tinued and increasing importance of the Monroe 
 Doctrine as a principle of national policy, the natu 
 ral and reciprocal aspect of that doctrine, imply 
 ing political isolation from Europe, became more 
 deeply imbedded in the national consciousness. 
 
 There was, it is true, another aspect to American 
 foreign policy besides the European, namely, that 
 concerning the Pacific and the Far East, which, as 
 diplomatic historians have pointed out, does not 
 seem to have been affected by the tradition of iso 
 lation. Since the day when the western frontier 
 was pushed to the Golden Gate, the United States 
 has taken an active interest in problems of the 
 Pacific. Alaska was purchased from Russia. An 
 American seaman was the first to open the trade of 
 Japan to the outside world and thus precipitated 
 the great revolution which has touched every as 
 pect of Far Eastern questions. American traders 
 watched carefully the commercial development of 
 Oriental ports, in which Americans have played an 
 active role. In China and in the maintenance of 
 the open door especially, has America taken the 
 keenest interest. It is a matter of pride that Amer 
 ican policy, always of a purely commerciai and 
 
32 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 peaceful nature, showed itself less aggressive than 
 that of some European states. But the Govern 
 ment insisted upon the recognition of American 
 interest in every Far Eastern issue that might be 
 raised, and was ready to intervene with those of 
 Europe in moments of crisis or danger. 
 
 A fairly clear-cut distinction might thus be made 
 between American pretensions in the different 
 parts of the world. In the Americas the nation 
 claimed that sort of preeminence which was implied 
 by the Monroe Doctrine, a preeminence which as 
 regards the Latin-American states north of the 
 Orinoco many felt must be actively enforced, in 
 view of special interests in the Caribbean. In the 
 Far East the United States claimed an equality of 
 status with the European powers. In the rest of 
 the world, Europe, Africa, the Levant, the tradi 
 tional American policy of abstention held good 
 absolutely, at least until the close of the century. 
 
 The war with Spain affected American foreign 
 policy vitally. The holding of the Philippines, 
 even if it were to prove merely temporary, created 
 new relations with all the great powers, of Europe 
 as of Asia; American Caribbean interests were 
 strengthened; and the victory over a European 
 power, even one of a second class in material 
 
NEUTRALITY 33 
 
 strength, necessarily altered the traditional atti 
 tude of the nation towards the other states of Eu 
 rope and theirs towards it. This change was stimu 
 lated by the close attention which American mer 
 chants and bankers began to give to European 
 combinations and policies, particularly to the ex 
 ploitation of thinly populated districts by Eu 
 ropean states. Even before the Spanish War a 
 keen-sighted student of foreign affairs, Richard 
 Olney, had declared that the American people 
 could not assume an attitude of indifference to 
 wards European politics and that the hegemony of a 
 single continental state would be disastrous to their 
 prosperity if not to their safety. Conversely Eu 
 ropeans began to watch America with greater care. 
 The victory over Spain was resented and the fear 
 of American commercial development began to 
 spread. The Kaiser had even talked of a continen 
 tal customs union to meet American competition. 
 On the other hand, Great Britain, which had dis 
 played a benevolent attitude during the Spanish 
 War and whose admiral at Manila had perhaps 
 blocked German interference, showed an increas 
 ing desire for a close understanding. The friend 
 ship of the United States, itself once a British de 
 pendency, for the British colonies was natural and 
 
84 WOODEOW WILSON AND THE WAE 
 
 American interests in the Far East had much in 
 common with those of Great Britain. 
 
 External evidence of the new place of the United 
 States in the world might be found in the position 
 taken by Roosevelt as peacemaker between Russia 
 and Japan, and, more significantly, in the role 
 played by the American representative, Henry 
 White, at the Conference of Algeciras in 1906. Not 
 merely did the American Government consent to 
 discuss matters essentially European in character, 
 but its attitude proved almost decisive in the settle 
 ment then drafted. It is true that the Senate, in 
 approving that settlement, refused to assume re 
 sponsibility for its maintenance and reiterated its 
 adherence to traditional policy. But those who 
 watched developments with intelligent eyes must 
 have agreed with Roosevelt when he said: "We 
 have no choice, we people of the United States, as 
 to whether we shall play a great part in the affairs 
 of the world. That has been decided for us by fate, 
 by the march of events." Yet it may be ques 
 tioned whether the average American, during the 
 first decade of the twentieth century, realized the 
 change that had come over relations with Europe. 
 The majority of citizens certainly felt that any 
 thing happening east of the Atlantic was none of 
 
NEUTRALITY 35 
 
 their business, just as everything that occurred 
 in the Americas was entirely outside the scope of 
 European interference. 
 
 There is little to show that Woodrow Wilson, at 
 the time when he entered upon his duties as Presi 
 dent, was one of the few Americans who fully ap 
 preciated the new international position of the 
 United States and its consequences, even had there 
 been no war. The Democratic platform of 1912 
 hardly mentioned foreign policy, and Wilson s In 
 augural contained no reference to anything except 
 domestic matters. Certain problems inherited 
 from the previous Administration forced upon the 
 President, however, the formulation, if not of a 
 policy, at least of an attitude. The questions of the 
 Panama Canal tolls and Japanese immigration, the 
 Mexican situation, the Philippines, general rela 
 tions with Latin-America, all demanded attention. 
 In each case Wilson displayed a willingness to sac 
 rifice, a desire to avoid stressing the material 
 strength of the United States, an anxiety to com 
 promise, which matched in spirit the finest tradi 
 tions of American foreign policy, which has gener 
 ally been marked by high ideals. Many of his 
 countrymen, possibly without adequate study or 
 command of the facts, supposed that Wilson was 
 
36 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 inspired less by positive ideals than by the belief 
 that no problem of a foreign nature was worth a 
 quarrel. People liked the principle contained in the 
 sentence: "We can afford to exercise the self-re 
 straint of a really great nation which realizes its own 
 strength and scorns to misuse it." But they also 
 wondered whether the passivity of the Government 
 did not in part proceed from the fact that the Presi 
 dent could not make up his mind what he wanted 
 to do. They looked upon his handling of the Mex 
 ican situation as clear evidence of a lack of policy. 
 Nevertheless the country as a whole, without ex 
 pressing enthusiasm for Wilson s attitude, was 
 obviously pleased by his attempts to avoid for 
 eign entanglements, and in the early summer of 
 1914 the eyes of the nation were focused upon 
 domestic issues. 
 
 Then came the war in Europe. 
 
 Today, after the long years of stress and 
 struggle in which the crimes of Germany have re 
 ceived full advertisement, few Americans will ad 
 mit that they did not perceive during that first 
 week of August, 1914, the complete significance of 
 the moral issues involved in the European war. 
 They read back into their thoughts of those early 
 
NEUTRALITY 37 
 
 days the realization which, in truth, came only 
 later, that Germany was the brutal aggressor at 
 tacking those aspects of modern civilization which 
 are dear to America. In fact there were not many 
 then who grasped the essential truth that the cause 
 defended by Great Britain and France was indeed 
 that of America and that their defeat would bring 
 the United States face to face with vital danger, 
 both material and moral. 
 
 Partisanship, of course, was not lacking and fre 
 quently it was of an earnest kind; in view of the 
 large number of European-born who enjoyed citi 
 zenship, sympathy with one side or the other was 
 inevitably warm. West of the Mississippi it was 
 some time before the masses were stirred from their 
 indifference to and their ignorance of the strug 
 gle. But on the Atlantic seaboard and in the 
 Middle West opinion became sharply divided. The 
 middle-class German-Americans naturally espoused 
 with some vehemence the justice of the Father 
 land s cause. German intellectuals of influence, 
 such as Hugo Miinsterberg, inveighed against the 
 hypocrisy and the decadence of the Entente 
 powers. Many Americans who had lived or had 
 been educated in Germany, some professors who 
 had been brought into contact with the Kaiser, 
 
38 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 explained the "essentially defensive character" of 
 Germany s struggle against the threatening Slav. 
 Certain of the politically active Irish elements, 
 anxious to discredit the British, also lent their 
 support to the German cause. 
 
 On the Atlantic coast, however, the general trend 
 of opinion ran strongly in favor of the Entente. 
 The brave defense of the Belgians at Liege against 
 terrible odds evoked warm sympathy; the stories 
 of the atrocities committed by the invading Ger 
 mans, constantly more frequent and more brutal 
 in character, enhanced that feeling. The valorous 
 retreat of the French and their last-ditch stand on 
 the Marne compelled admiration. Moreover, the 
 school histories of the United States with their em 
 phasis upon La Fayette and the aid given by the 
 French in the first fight for liberty proved to be of 
 no small importance in the molding of sympathy. 
 Business men naturally favored Great Britain, 
 both because of financial relationships and because 
 of their dislike and fear of German commercial 
 methods. 
 
 But in all this partisanship there was little ap 
 preciation of the peril that might result from Ger 
 man victory and no articulate demand that the 
 United States intervene. Warm sympathy might 
 
NEUTRALITY 39 
 
 be given to one side or the other, but the almost 
 universal opinion was that the war was none of our 
 business. Even Theodore Roosevelt, who later was 
 to be one of the most determined advocates of 
 American intervention on the side of the Entente, 
 writing for The Outlook in September, 1914, con 
 gratulated the country on its separation from Euro 
 pean quarrels, which made possible the preservation 
 of our peace. 
 
 Whatever the trend of public opinion, Presi 
 dent Wilson would have insisted upon neutrality. 
 Everything in his character and policy demanded 
 the maintenance of peace. He had entered office 
 with a broad programme of social reform in view, 
 and the attainment of his ideals depended upon do 
 mestic tranquillity. He was, furthermore, a real 
 pacifist, believing that war is debasing morally 
 and disastrous economically. Finally, he was con 
 vinced that the United States was consecrated to a 
 special task, namely, the inspiration of politics by 
 moral factors; if the nation was to accomplish this 
 task its example must be a higher example than one 
 of force. Unquestionably he looked forward to 
 acting as mediator in the struggle and thus secur 
 ing for the country and himself new prestige such 
 as had come in Roosevelt s mediation between 
 
40 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Russia and Japan. But the main thought in his 
 mind was, first, the preservation of peace for the 
 sake of peace; and next, to attain the supreme 
 glory of showing the world that greatness and 
 peaceableness are complementary in national char 
 acter and not antithetic. "We are champions of 
 peace and of concord," he said, "and we should 
 be very jealous of this distinction which we have 
 sought to earn." 
 
 Wilson s determination was strengthened by his 
 obvious failure to distinguish between the war aims 
 of the two sides. He did not at first see the moral 
 issue involved. He was anxious to "reserve judg 
 ment until the end of the war, when all its events 
 and circumstances can be seen in their entirety 
 and in their true relations." When appeals and 
 protests were sent to him from Germany, Belgium, 
 and France dealing with infractions of the law and 
 practice of nations, he was willing to return a re 
 sponse to Germany, which had confessedly com 
 mitted an international wrong, identical with that 
 sent to Belgium which had suffered from that 
 wrong. Wilson has himself confessed that "Amer 
 ica did not at first see the full meaning of the war. 
 It looked like a natural raking out of the pent-up 
 jealousies and rivalries of the complicated politics 
 
NEUTRALITY 41 
 
 of Europe. . . . We, at the distance of America, 
 looked on at first without a full comprehension of 
 what the plot was getting into." x That the aims 
 of the belligerent powers might affect the con 
 science or the fortunes of America he did not per 
 ceive. He urged us not to be "thrown off our bal 
 ance by a war with which we have nothing to do, 
 whose causes cannot touch us, whose very exist 
 ence affords us opportunities of friendship and dis 
 interested service which should make us ashamed 
 of any thought of hostility or fearful preparation 
 for trouble." Hence his proclamation of neutral 
 ity, which was universally accepted as right. 
 Hence, also, his adjuration to be "impartial in 
 thought as well as in action," which was not so 
 universally accepted and marks, perhaps, a definite 
 rift between Wilson and the bulk of educated 
 opinion in the Northeast. 
 
 During the early days of August Wilson had pro 
 claimed his desire to act as mediator between the 
 warring forces, although he must have realized 
 that the suggestion would prove fruitless at that 
 moment. Again, after the battle of the Marne, 
 he took advantage of German discouragement, 
 apparently receiving a hint from Johann von 
 
 Speech on the George Washington, July 4, 1919. 
 
42 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Bernstorff, German Ambassador in Washington, to 
 sound the belligerents on the possibility of an ar 
 rangement. Failing a second time to elicit serious 
 consideration of peace, he withdrew to wait for a 
 better opportunity. Thus the Germans, beaten 
 back from Paris, vainly pounded the allied lines on 
 the Yser; the Russians, after forcing their path 
 through Galicia, defended Warsaw with despera 
 tion; while Wilson kept himself and his country 
 strictly aloof from the conflict. 
 
 But no mere desires or declarations could pre 
 vent the war from touching America, and each day 
 made more apparent the difficulties and the dan 
 gers of neutrality. The Atlantic no longer sepa 
 rated the two worlds. In September and October 
 the British Government, taking advantage of the 
 naval supremacy assured by their fleet, issued Or 
 ders in Council designed to provide for close control 
 of neutral commerce and to prevent the importa 
 tion of contraband into Germany. British super 
 vision of war-time trade has always been strict and 
 its interpretation of the meaning of contraband 
 broad; the present instance was no exception. 
 American ships and cargoes were seized and confis 
 cated to an extent which, while it doubtless seemed 
 justified to the British, who were fighting for their 
 
NEUTRALITY 43 
 
 lives, evoked a chorus of bitter complaints from 
 American producers and exporters. Commerce 
 with neutral countries of Europe threatened to 
 become completely interrupted. On the 21st of 
 October and again on the 26th of December, the 
 State Department sent notes of protest to the 
 British Government. The tone of the discussion 
 was notably sharpened by the seizure of the Wil- 
 helmina, supposedly an American ship, though, as 
 later developed, she had been chartered by a Ger 
 man agent in New York, Dr. Heinrich F. Albert, in 
 order to bring the Anglo-American dispute to a head. 
 How far the interference with our trade by the 
 British might have embittered relations, if other 
 issues had not seemed more pressing, no one can 
 say. Precisely at the moment when business men 
 were beginning to call upon Wilson for a sturdier 
 defense of American commercial rights, a contro 
 versy with Germany eclipsed, at least from the eye 
 of the general public, all other foreign questions. 
 From the moment when the defeat on the Marne 
 showed the Germans that victory was not likely 
 to come quickly to their arms, the Berlin Govern 
 ment realized the importance of preventing the ex 
 port of American munitions. Since the allies held 
 control of the seas an embargo on such export 
 
44 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 would be entirely to German advantage, and the 
 head of German propaganda in this country, a 
 former Colonial Secretary, Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, 
 attempted to mobilize German-American senti 
 ment and to bring pressure upon Congressmen 
 through their constituents in favor of such an em 
 bargo. It was easy to allege that the export of 
 arms, since they went to the allied camp alone, was 
 on its face, unneutral. Several Senators approved 
 the embargo, among them the chairman of the 
 Senate Foreign Relations Committee, William J. 
 Stone of Missouri. Against the proposed embargo 
 Wilson set his face steadfastly. He perceived the 
 fallacy of the German argument and insisted that 
 to prevent the export of arms would be itself un 
 neutral. The inability of the Central Powers to 
 import arms from the United States resulted from 
 their inferiority on the high seas; the Government 
 would be departing from its position of impartial 
 ity if it failed to keep American markets open to 
 zvery nation of the world, belligerent or neutral. 
 The United States could not change the rules in 
 the middle of the game for the advantage of one 
 side. The perfect legality of Wilson s decision 
 has been frankly recognized since the war by the 
 German Ambassador. 
 
NEUTRALITY 45 
 
 But the execution of German military plans de 
 manded that the allied shortage in munitions, upon 
 which the Teutons counted for success in the spring 
 campaigns, should not be replenished from Amer 
 ican sources. Failing to budge Wilson on the pro 
 posal of an embargo, they launched themselves 
 upon a more reckless course. On February 4, 1915, 
 the German Admiralty issued a proclamation to 
 the effect that after the 18th of February, German 
 submarines would destroy every enemy merchant 
 vessel found in the waters about the British Isles, 
 which were declared a "war zone"; and that it 
 might not be possible to provide for the safety of 
 crew or passengers of destroyed vessels. Neutral 
 ships were warned of the danger of destruction if 
 they entered the zone. The excuse alleged for this 
 decided departure from the custom of nations was 
 the British blockade upon foodstuffs, which had 
 been declared as a result of the control of food in 
 Germany by the Government. Here was quite a 
 different matter from British interference with 
 American trade-rights; for if the German threat 
 were carried into effect it signified not merely the 
 destruction or loss of property, for which restitu 
 tion might be made, but the possible drowning of 
 American citizens, perhaps women and children, 
 
46 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 who would be entirely within their rights in travel 
 ing upon merchant vessels and to whom the 
 Government owed protection. 
 
 Wilson s reply was prompt and definite. "If the 
 commanders of German vessels of war should . . . 
 destroy on the high seas an American vessel or the 
 lives of American citizens, it would be difficult for 
 the Government of the United States to view the 
 act in any other light than as an indefensible viola 
 tion of neutral rights. . . . The Government of 
 the United States would be constrained to hold the 
 Imperial German Government to a strict accounta 
 bility for such acts of their naval authorities and to 
 take any steps it might be necessary to take to safe 
 guard American lives and property and to secure to 
 American citizens the full enjoyment of their ac 
 knowledged rights on the high seas." It was the 
 clearest of warnings. Would Germany heed it? 
 And if she did not, would Wilson surrender his 
 pacific ideals and take the nation into war? 
 
CHAPTER HI 
 
 THE SUBMARINE 
 
 EARLY in the winter of 1914-1915 President Wilson 
 apparently foresaw something of the complications 
 likely to arise from the measures and counter- 
 measures taken by the belligerents to secure con 
 trol of overseas commerce, and sent his personal 
 adviser, Colonel House, across the Atlantic to 
 study the possibilities of reaching a modus vivendi. 
 There was no man so well qualified for the mission. 
 Edward Mandell House was a Texan by birth, but 
 a cosmopolitan by nature. His hobby was prac 
 tical politics; his avocation the study of history and 
 government. His catholicity of taste is indicated 
 by the nature of his library, which includes numer 
 ous volumes not merely on the social sciences but 
 also on philosophy and poetry. His intellectual 
 background was thus no less favorable than his 
 political for the post which he assumed as Wilson s 
 personal adviser Disqualified by physical delicacy 
 
 47 
 
48 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 from entering the political arena himself and con 
 sistently refusing office, he had for years controlled 
 the political stage in his own State; in 1912, exer 
 cising strong influence in the national party organ 
 ization, he had done much to crystallize sentiment 
 in favor of Wilson as presidential candidate. Slight 
 in stature, quiet in manner and voice, disliking per 
 sonal publicity, with an almost uncanny instinct 
 for divining the motives that actuate men, he pos 
 sessed that which Wilson lacked the capacity to 
 "mix," to meet his fellow mortals, no matter what 
 their estate, on a common ground. 
 
 Courteous and engaging, Colonel House was an 
 unexcelled negotiator: he had a genius for com 
 promise, as perfect a control of his emotions as of 
 his facial expression, and a pacific magnetism that 
 soothed into reasonableness the most heated inter 
 locutor. His range of acquaintance in the United 
 States was unparalleled. Abroad, previous to the 
 war, he had discussed international relations with 
 the Kaiser and the chief statesmen of France and 
 England. His experience of American politics and 
 knowledge of foreign affairs, whether derived from 
 men or from books, were matched by an almost un 
 erring penetration in the analysis of a political situ 
 ation, domestic or European. As a liberal idealist 
 
THE SUBMARINE 49 
 
 and pacifist, he saw eye to eye with Wilson; his 
 sense of political actualities, however, was infinitely 
 more keen. 
 
 But even the skill of Colonel House was not 
 sufficient to induce Germany to hold her hand, and, 
 as spring advanced, it became increasingly clear 
 that she was resolved to carry her threats of un 
 restricted submarine warfare into effect. The 
 quality of Wilson s pacifism was about to be put to 
 the test. In March a British steamer, the Falaba, 
 was sunk and an American citizen drowned; some 
 weeks later an American boat, the Gushing, was 
 attacked by a German airplane; and on the 1st of 
 May, another American steamer, the Gulflight, was 
 sunk by a submarine with the loss of two American 
 lives. When was Wilson going to translate into 
 action his summary warning of "strict accounta 
 bility? " Even as the question was asked, we heard 
 that the Germans had sunk the Lusitania. On the 
 7th of May, 1915, at two in the afternoon, the pride 
 of the British merchant marine was struck by two 
 torpedoes fired from a German submarine. She 
 sank in half an hour. More than eleven hundred 
 of her passengers and crew were drowned, among 
 them one hundred and twenty-four Americans, 
 men, women, and children. 
 
50 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 The cry that went up from America was one of 
 anguish, but still more one of rage. This attack 
 upon non-combatant travelers, citizens of a neutral 
 state, had been callously premeditated and ruth 
 lessly executed in cold blood. The German Gov 
 ernment had given frigid warning, in a newspaper 
 advertisement, of its intention to affront the cus 
 tom of nations and the laws of humanity. A wave 
 of the bitterest anti-German feeling swept down 
 the Atlantic coast and out to the Mississippi; for 
 the first time there became apparent a definite 
 trend of opinion demanding the entrance of the 
 United States into the war on the side of the En 
 tente. On that day Wilson might have won a 
 declaration of war, so strong was popular senti 
 ment; and despite the comparative indifference of 
 the Missouri valley and the Far West, he might 
 have aroused enthusiasm if not unity. 
 
 But a declaration of war then would, in all prob 
 ability, have been a mistake. Entrance into the war 
 at that time would have been based upon neither 
 judgment nor ideals, but merely upon emotion. The 
 American people were in no way prepared to bring 
 material aid to the cause of justice, nor did the na 
 tion yet appreciate the moral issues involved. It 
 would have been a war of revenge for American lives 
 
THE SUBMARINE 51 
 
 lost. The President was by temperament disin 
 clined to listen to the passionate demands for inter 
 vention, and, as historian, he must have had in mind 
 the error committed by McKinley when he permit 
 ted the declaration of war on Spain, after the sink 
 ing of the Maine in 1898. Sober afterthought has 
 generally agreed that Wilson was right. But he 
 was himself led into a serious error that produced 
 consequences which were not soon to be dissipated. 
 Speaking three days after the event, when the 
 world looked to him to express the soul of America, 
 and dealing with the spirit of Americanism, he per 
 mitted an unfortunate phrase to enter his address 
 and to cloud his purpose. "There is such a thing," 
 he said, "as a man being too proud to fight." The 
 phrase was by no means essential to the main 
 points of his address; it was preceded by one of 
 greater importance, namely that "the example of 
 America must be a special example ... of peace 
 because peace is the healing and elevating influence 
 of the world and strife is not." It was followed by 
 another of equal importance, that a nation may 
 be so much in the right "that it does not need to 
 convince others by force that it is right." These 
 two phrases expressed what was in the President s 
 mind clearly and definitely: the United States was 
 
52 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 consecrated to ideals which could not be carried into 
 effect through force, unless every other method dic 
 tated by supreme patience had failed. But the 
 world did not notice them. All that it remembered 
 was that the United States was "too proud to 
 fight." What did this mean to the average man 
 except that the country was afraid to fight? 
 The peoples of the Entente powers were con 
 temptuous; Germans were reassured; Americans 
 were humiliated. 
 
 Wilson the phrase-maker was betrayed by a 
 phrase, and it was to pursue him like a Fury. The 
 chorus of indignation and shame aroused by this 
 phrase covered completely the determination and 
 skill with which he entered upon the diplomatic 
 struggle with Germany. His purpose was definite. 
 He had gone on record in February that the United 
 States Government would protect the rights of 
 American citizens, and he was bound to secure from 
 Germany a promise that merchant ships should not 
 be torpedoed without warning or assuring the lives 
 of crew and passengers. And yet by virtue of his 
 pacific principles this promise could not be forcibly 
 extracted until every other possible method had 
 been attempted in vain. Unquestionably he was 
 supported in his policy by many, perhaps most, 
 
THE SUBMARINE 53 
 
 thoughtful people, although wherever support was 
 given him in the East it was generally grudging. 
 Such a representative and judicial mind as that of 
 ex-President Taft favored cool consideration and 
 careful action. But the difficulties encountered by 
 the President were tremendous. On the one hand 
 he met the bitter denunciations of the group, con 
 stantly increasing hi numbers, which demanded our 
 immediate intervention on the side of the Entente. 
 Led by Roosevelt, who no longer felt as in the pre 
 vious September, that the United States had no im 
 mediate interest in the war, this group included in 
 fluential men of business and many writers. They 
 had lost patience with Wilson s patience. His pol 
 icy was, in their opinion, that of a coward. On the 
 other hand, Wilson was assailed by pro-Germans 
 and die-hard pacifists; the former believed that the 
 British blockade justified Germany s submarine 
 warfare; the latter were afraid even of strong lan 
 guage in diplomatic notes, lest it lead to war. At the 
 very outset of the diplomatic controversy with Ger 
 many, before the second Lusitania note was dis 
 patched, the Secretary of State, William Jennings 
 Bryan, resigned, in the belief that the President s 
 tone was too peremptory. For Bryan was willing to 
 arbitrate even Germany s right to drown American 
 
54 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 citizens on the high seas. The defection of this 
 influential politician a year previous would have 
 weakened Wilson seriously, but by now the Presi 
 dent had won secure control of the party. He was, 
 indeed, strengthened diplomatically by Bryan s 
 resignation, as the latter, in a conversation with 
 the Austrian Ambassador, had given the impres 
 sion that American protests need not be taken over- 
 seriously. His continuance in office might have 
 encouraged German leaders to adopt a bolder tone. 
 From the very beginning of his attempts to ob 
 tain from Germany a disavowal for the sinking of 
 the Lusitania and a promise not to sink without 
 warning, the President took his stand upon high 
 ground. Not merely did he insist upon the rights 
 guaranteed to neutrals by the law of nations; he 
 took the controversy out of the class of ordinary 
 subjects of diplomatic discussion and contended 
 "for nothing less high and sacred than the rights of 
 humanity." To this he recurred in each of his 
 notes. Germany avoided the issue. At first she in 
 sisted that the Lusitania was armed, carrying ex 
 plosives of war, transporting troops from Canada, 
 and thus virtually acting as a naval auxiliary. 
 After the falsity of this assertion was shown, she 
 adduced the restrictions placed by Great Britain 
 
THE SUBMARINE 55 
 
 on neutral trade as excuse for submarine opera 
 tions, and contended that the circumstances of 
 naval warfare in the twentieth century had so 
 changed that the principles of international law no 
 longer held good. 
 
 Each time Wilson returned to his point that the 
 "rights of neutrals are based upon principle, not 
 upon expediency, and the principles are immutable. 
 Illegal and inhuman acts . . . are manifestly in 
 defensible when they deprive neutrals of their 
 acknowledged rights, particularly when they vio 
 late the right to life itself. If a belligerent cannot 
 retaliate against an enemy without injuring the 
 lives of neutrals, as well as their property, human 
 ity, as well as justice and a due regard for the dig 
 nity of neutral powers should dictate that the prac 
 tice be discontinued." Wilson terminated his 
 third note to Germany with a warning, which had 
 the tone, if not the form, of an ultimatum: there 
 must be a scrupulous observance of neutral rights 
 in this critical matter, as repetition of "acts in con 
 travention of those rights must be regarded by the 
 Government of the United States, when they affect 
 American citizens, as deliberately unfriendly." 
 
 The exchange of notes consumed much time and 
 proved a severe test for American patience. The 
 
56 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 first Lusitania note was sent on the 13th of May 
 and it was not until the 1st of September that the 
 German Government finally gave a pledge that was 
 acceptable to Wilson. In the meantime there had 
 been continued sinkings, or attempts to sink, in 
 clear violation of the principles for which the Presi 
 dent was contending. The Nebraskan, the Armen 
 ian, the Orduna, were subjected to submarine at 
 tacks. On the 19th of August the Arabic was sunk 
 and two Americans lost. The ridicule heaped upon 
 the President by the British and certain sections of 
 the American press, for his writing of diplomatic 
 notes, was only equaled by the sense of humiliation 
 experienced by pro-Entente elements in this coun 
 try. Punch issued a cartoon in which Uncle Sam 
 pointed to Wilson as having outstripped the record 
 made by Job for patience. Nevertheless W 7 ilson 
 obtained the main point for which he was striving. 
 On September 1, 1915, the German Government 
 gave the definite pledge that "Liners will not be 
 sunk by our submarines without warning and with 
 out safety of the lives of non-combatants, provided 
 that the liners do not try to escape or offer resist 
 ance." Wilson had sought to safeguard a principle 
 by compelling from Germany a written acknowl 
 edgment of its validity. So much he had won 
 
THE SUBMARINE 57 
 
 and without the exercise of force. Even those 
 whose nerves were most overwrought by the long- 
 drawn-out negotiations, admitted that it was a 
 diplomatic victory. 
 
 The victory was not clean-cut, for Germany had 
 not yet disavowed the sinking of the Lusitania, nor 
 did the category "liners" seem to include all mer 
 chant vessels . How real was even the partial victory 
 remained to be seen. Within three days of the Ger 
 man pledge the Hesperian was sunk and an Amer 
 ican citizen drowned. On the 7th of November the 
 Ancona was torpedoed in the Mediterranean by an 
 Austrian submarine with the loss of more American 
 lives. It is true that after each case a disavowal 
 was made and a renewal of promises vouchsafed. 
 But it seemed obvious that Germany was merely 
 playing for time and also that she counted upon 
 pro-German and pacifist agitation in this country. 
 For a brief period it appeared as if her hopes were 
 not to be entirely disappointed. British merchant 
 vessels, following long-established custom, had for 
 some months been armed for purposes of defense. 
 The German Government on February 10, 1916, 
 announced that henceforward such armed mer 
 chantmen would be regarded as auxiliary cruisers 
 and would be sunk without warning. It was 
 
58 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 unfortunate that Robert Lansing, who had suc 
 ceeded Bryan as Secretary of State, had proposed 
 on January 18, 1916, to the diplomatic representa 
 tives of the Allied forces that they cease the arming 
 of merchantmen as a means of securing from Ger 
 many a pledge which would cover all merchantmen 
 as well as passenger liners; this proposal gave to 
 Germany a new opportunity for raising the issue 
 of the submarine. But either Lansing s proposal 
 had been made without Mr. Wilson s sanction or 
 the President changed his mind, since on the 10th 
 of February Wilson declared that he intended to 
 recognize the right of merchantmen to arm for pur 
 poses of defense. Once more he insisted that the 
 rules of war could not be changed during war for 
 the advantage of one side. 
 
 His declaration led at once to something like a 
 revolt of Congress. Already some of those who 
 especially feared intervention had been suffering 
 from an attack of panic as a result of Wilson s re 
 cent decision to support the preparedness move 
 ment. They were further terrified by the possi 
 bility that some American citizen traveling on 
 an armed merchantman might lose his life and 
 that the demand for entrance into the war might 
 thus become irresistible. Bryanites, pro-German 
 
THE SUBMARINE 59 
 
 propagandists, and Irish combined against the 
 President, and were reinforced by all the discon 
 tented elements who hoped to break Wilson s con 
 trol of the Democratic party. The combination 
 seemed like a new cave of Adullam. Resolutions 
 were introduced in the Senate by Thomas P. Gore 
 and in the House by Jeff McLemore, based upon 
 suggestions made by Bryan nine months before, 
 that American citizens should be warned not to 
 travel on armed merchant vessels. Senator Stone, 
 of the Foreign Relations Committee, supported 
 these resolutions and it appeared probable that 
 Germany would find her strongest support in the 
 American Congress. 
 
 Wilson struck sharply. Not merely his leader 
 ship of the party and the country was at stake, but 
 also that moral leadership of neutral nations and 
 the world toward which the struggle with Germany 
 was to take him. Refusing to receive Senator 
 Stone, he sent him a letter in which the cardinal 
 points of his position were underlined. "Once 
 accept a single abatement of right," he insisted, 
 "and many other humiliations would certainly fol 
 low, and the whole fine fabric of international law 
 might crumble under our hands piece by piece. 
 What we are now contending for in this matter is 
 
60 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 the very essence of the things that have made 
 America a sovereign nation. She cannot yield them 
 without conceding her own impotency as a Nation 
 and making virtual surrender of her independent 
 position among the nations of the world." This 
 definite enunciation was in effect an appeal to the 
 American people, which came as a relief to those 
 who had suffered from presidential patience under 
 German outrages. The storm of public feeling 
 aroused against the rebellious Congressmen was 
 such that Wilson s victory became assured. De 
 manding concrete justification of his stand, he in 
 sisted that the resolutions be put to the vote. 
 The issue was somewhat confused in the Senate 
 so that the vote was not decisive; but in the House 
 the McLemore resolution was defeated by a vote 
 of 276 to 142. 
 
 And yet the submarine issue was not finally 
 closed. Less than a month after the rights of 
 American citizens were thus maintained, the Brit 
 ish passenger steamer Sussex, crossing the English 
 Channel, was torpedoed without warning. It was 
 the clearest violation of the pledge given by the 
 German Government the previous September. 
 Once again Wilson acted without precipitancy. 
 He waited until the Germans should present 
 
THE SUBMARINE 61 
 
 explanations and thereafter took more than a week 
 in which to formulate his decision. Finally, on 
 April 19, 1916, he called the two houses of Congress 
 in joint session to lay before them his note to Ger 
 many. Unlike his Lusitania notes, this was a defi 
 nite ultimatum, clearly warranted by the undeniable 
 fact that Germany had broken a solemn pledge. 
 After recounting the long list of events which had 
 so sorely tried American patience, Wilson con 
 cluded that " unless the Imperial German Govern 
 ment should now immediately declare and effect 
 an abandonment of its present methods of war 
 fare against passenger and freight carrying vessels 
 this Government can have no choice but to sever 
 diplomatic relations with the Government of the 
 German Empire altogether." The force of the ul 
 timatum was emphasized by the general tone of 
 the note, in which, as in the Lusitania notes, the 
 President spoke not so much for the legal rights of 
 the United States, as in behalf of the moral rights 
 of all humanity. He stressed the "principles of 
 humanity as embodied in the law of nations," and 
 excoriated the "inhumanity of submarine war 
 fare"; he terminated by stating that the United 
 States would contemplate a diplomatic break with 
 reluctance, but would feel constrained to take the 
 
62 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 step "in behalf of humanity and the rights of neu 
 tral nations." This note of emphasis upon Amer 
 ica s duty to mankind rather than to herself formed 
 the main theme of a speech delivered two days 
 previous: "America will have forgotten her tradi 
 tions whenever upon any occasion she fights merely 
 for herself under such circumstances as will show 
 that she has forgotten to fight for all mankind. 
 And the only excuse that America can ever have 
 for the assertion of her physical force is that she 
 asserts it in behalf of the interests of humanity." 
 Germany yielded before Wilson s ultimatum, 
 though with bad grace, and promised that no more 
 merchant ships would be sunk "without warning 
 and without saving human lives." But she also 
 tried to make her promise conditional upon the ces 
 sation by Great Britain of methods of warfare 
 which Germany called illegal, implying that her 
 pledge might be withdrawn at her pleasure: "the 
 German Government . . . must reserve itself 
 complete liberty of action." This condition Wil 
 son, in taking note of Germany s pledge, definitely 
 waved aside : "the Government of the United States 
 notifies the Imperial Government that it cannot 
 for a moment entertain, much less discuss, a sug 
 gestion that respect by German naval authorities 
 
THE SUBMARINE 63 
 
 for the rights of American citizens upon the high 
 seas should in any way or in the slightest de 
 gree be made contingent upon the conduct of any 
 other government affecting the rights of neutrals 
 and noncombatants. Responsibility in such mat 
 ters is single, not joint; absolute, not relative/* 
 By its silence the German Government seemed to 
 acquiesce and the crisis was over. The country 
 had been close to war, but intervention might yet 
 be avoided if Germany kept her word. That, how 
 ever, was a condition upon which people were 
 learning not to rely. 
 
 It is obvious that by the early summer of 1916 
 President Wilson s attitude on foreign affairs had 
 undergone a notable transformation from that 
 parochial spirit of 1914 which had led him to de 
 clare that the war was no concern of America; he 
 had given over completely the tradition that if we 
 keep our own hands clean we fulfill our duty. He 
 had begun to elaborate an idealistic policy of ser 
 vice to the world, not unreminiscent of the altruis 
 tic schemes of Clay and Webster for assisting op 
 pressed republicans in Europe during the first third 
 of the nineteenth century. Wilson, like those 
 statesmen, had always felt that the position of the 
 United States in the world was of a special sort, 
 
64 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 quite different from that of the European states, 
 and circumstances were forcing him to take the 
 stand that the nation must assume the lead in the 
 world in order to ensure the operation of the prin 
 ciples that Americans believe in. "We are in some 
 sort and by the force of circumstances the respon 
 sible spokesman of the rights of humanity." He 
 still opposed active intervention in the war; the 
 mission of the United States was a higher one than 
 could adequately be fulfilled through war; the 
 kind of service we could best give was not fighting. 
 Yet he was brought to admit, even before the Sus 
 sex crisis (February 26, 1916), that in the last in 
 stance war might be necessary if the American peo 
 ple were to assume the role of champion of liberty 
 in the world at large, as they had championed it in 
 the Americas; for the rights of humanity must be 
 made secure against menace: " America ought to 
 keep out of this war ... at the expense of 
 everything except this single thing upon which her 
 character and history are founded, her sense of hu 
 manity and justice. . . . Valor withholds itself 
 from all small implications and entanglements and 
 waits for the great opportunity, when the sword 
 will flash as if it carried the light of heaven upon 
 its blade." Thus the possibility of ultimate force 
 
THE SUBMARINE 65 
 
 was implied. Eighteen months previous, peace 
 had been for Wilson an end in itself. Now it 
 was subordinated to the greater end implied in 
 maintaining the principle of justice in the world. 
 
 During this period popular sentiment also under 
 went a notable development. Americans reacted 
 sharply to German threats and outrages, and were 
 thrown off their comfortable balance by the events 
 which touched American honor and safety so close 
 ly. Like Wilson, they were shaken out of that 
 sense of isolation which enveloped them in 1914, 
 and they were thus prepared for the reception of 
 broader ideals. The process of education was slow 
 and difficult. It was hampered by the confusion of 
 foreign issues. Propagandists took advantage of 
 the controversy with Great Britain in order to ob 
 scure the principles upon which the discussions with 
 Germany were based. The increasing stringency of 
 British control of commerce and the blacklisting 
 of various American firms by the British au 
 thorities resulted in numerous American protests 
 and to some warmth of feeling. Wilson was no 
 particular friend of the British, but he rightly in 
 sisted upon the distinction between the dispute 
 with Germany, which involved the common right 
 of humanity to life, and that with Great Britain, 
 
 5 
 
66 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 which involved merely rights of property. Never 
 theless that distinction was blurred in the minds of 
 many Americans, and their perception of the new 
 ideals of foreign policy was necessarily confused. 
 
 The education of the American people to the sig 
 nificance of the issue was also hampered by the 
 material change that came over the country during 
 the latter part of 1915 and the spring of 1916. The 
 influx of gold and the ease with which fortunes were 
 accumulated could not but have widespread effects. 
 The European war came at a moment when the 
 United States was passing through a period of com 
 paratively hard times. Stringency was naturally 
 increased by the liquidation of foreign investments 
 in 1914 and the closing of European markets to 
 American commerce. Business was dull. But 
 this condition was rapidly altered through the 
 placing of large contracts by the Entente Govern 
 ments and the most extensive buying by foreign 
 purchasers. New markets were found among the 
 neutral states, which were unable to buy in Europe. 
 Naturally there developed a rapid extension of 
 industrial activities. New manufacturing concerns 
 grew up, large and small, as a result of these ad 
 ventitious conditions, which paid enormous re 
 turns. Activities upon the stock market were 
 
THE SUBMARINE 67 
 
 unparalleled. New and sudden fortunes were 
 made; millionaires became common. The whole 
 world was debtor to America and a golden stream 
 flowed across the Atlantic. Prices rose rapidly 
 and wages followed. 
 
 Inevitably materialism conquered, at least for 
 the moment. The demand for luxuries was only 
 equaled by the craze for entertainment. Artisans 
 and shopgirls invaded the jewelry stores of Fifth 
 Avenue. Metropolitan life was a succession of 
 luncheons and teas, where fertile brains were bus 
 ied with the invention of new dancing steps rather 
 than the issues of the European war. Cabarets 
 were crowded and seats for midnight beauty shows 
 must be secured well in advance or by means of 
 gargantuan tips to pi utocratic head waiters. Much 
 of the materialism was simply external. In every 
 town American women by the thousand gave lavish 
 ly of their time and strength to knit and roll band 
 ages for the fighters and wounded overseas. 
 America was collecting millions for the relief of 
 Belgium, Serbia, and for the Red Cross. The 
 American Ambulance in France was served by men 
 imbued with the spirit of sacrifice. Thousands of 
 American youths enlisted in the Canadian forces. 
 The general atmosphere of the country, however, 
 
68 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 was heavy with amusement and money-making. 
 Not yet did America fully realize that the war 
 was a struggle of ideals which must concern every 
 one closely. In such an atmosphere the idealistic 
 policy of Wilson was not easily understood. 
 
 The President himself cannot escape a large 
 share of the blame for America s blindness to the is 
 sue. During the first twelve months of the war, 
 when the country looked to him for leadership, he 
 had, purposely or otherwise, fostered the forces of 
 pacifism and encouraged the advocates of national 
 isolation. He had underlined the separation of 
 the United States from everything that went on in 
 Europe and insisted that in the issues of the war 
 the American people had no interest. In deference 
 to the spirit of pacifism that engrossed the Middle 
 West, he had opposed the movement for military 
 preparedness. When, late in 1915, Wilson changed 
 his attitude and attempted to arouse the country 
 to a sense of American interest in world affairs 
 and to the need of preparing to accept responsi 
 bility, he encountered the opposition of forces 
 which he himself had helped to vitalize. 
 
 Popular education, especially upon the Atlantic 
 coast, was further hampered by the personal irrita 
 tion which the President aroused. Disliked when 
 
THE SUBMARINE 69 
 
 inaugurated, he had attracted bitter enmity among 
 the business men who dominate opinion in New 
 England and the Eastern States. They accused 
 him of truckling to labor. They were wearied by 
 his idealism, which seemed to them all words and 
 no deeds. They regarded his handling of foreign 
 affairs, whether in the Mexican or submarine crises, 
 as weak and vacillating. He was, in Rooseveltian 
 nomenclature, a "pussyfooter." Hence grew up 
 the tradition, which was destined to endure among 
 many elements of opinion, that everything advo 
 cated by Wilson must, simply by reason of its 
 authorship, be essentially wrong. The men of Bos 
 ton, New York, and Philadelphia were beginning to 
 give over their attitude of isolation and admit with 
 Roosevelt that the United States ought to stand 
 with the Entente. The Wilsonian doctrine of ser 
 vice to the world, however, was not to their taste, 
 partly because they did not like Wilson. 
 
 It was to the rural districts of the upper Missis 
 sippi and to the South that the President looked 
 most eagerly for support of his new policy. These 
 were the regions where indifference to and igno 
 rance of foreign affairs had been most conspicuous, 
 but they were also the regions where the Presi 
 dent s personal influence was strongest; finally they 
 
70 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 were the districts where extreme pacifism was most 
 deeply embedded. If Wilson s championship of the 
 rights of liberty throughout the world could be ac 
 complished by pacific methods, they would follow 
 him; but if it meant war, no one could guarantee 
 what their attitude might be. Bryan was popular 
 in those parts. As yet Wilson, while he had formu 
 lated his policy in broad terms, had not indicated 
 the methods or mechanism by which his principles 
 were to be put into operation. He would without 
 question encounter strong opposition among the 
 German-Americans; he would find the attitude of 
 the Irish foes of the Entente hostile; he would find 
 the Pacific coast more interested in Japanese immi 
 gration than in the ideals of the European war. 
 Fortunately events were to unify the heterogeneous 
 elements of the country, at least for the moment, in 
 a way that simplified greatly the President s prob 
 lem. Not the least of the unifying forces was to 
 be found in German psychology, which led the Im 
 perial Government to believe that the United 
 States could be rendered helpless through the 
 intrigues of German spies. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 PLOTS AND PREPAREDNESS 
 
 THE Government of the German Empire was in 
 spired by a spirit that was at once modern and 
 medieval, and this contradictory spirit manifested 
 itself in the ways and means employed to win the 
 sympathy of the United States and to prevent it, as 
 a neutral power, from assisting the Entente. Ger 
 many worked on the one hand by means of open 
 propaganda, which is the method of modern com 
 mercial advertisement translated into the political 
 field, and on the other by secret intrigue reminis 
 cent of the days of Louis XI. Her propaganda 
 took the form of organized campaigns to influence 
 opinion through speeches, pamphlets, and books, 
 which were designed to convince the country of the 
 justice of Germany s cause and the dangers of be 
 coming the catspaw of the Entente. Her plans of 
 intrigue were directed towards the use of German- 
 Americans or German spies to assist in the return 
 
 71 
 
72 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 of German officers from this country, to hinder the 
 transport of Canadian troops, to destroy commu 
 nications, and to hamper the output of munitions 
 for the Entente by strikes, incendiary fires, and 
 explosions. 
 
 During the first weeks of the war a German press 
 bureau was established in New York for the dis 
 tribution of pro-German literature and the support 
 of the German- American press. Its activities were 
 chiefly directed by Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, who 
 defended Germany from the charge of responsi 
 bility for the war and expatiated upon her effi 
 ciency and the beneficence of her culture in the same 
 breath that he attacked the commercial greed of 
 Great Britain, the cruel autocracy of Russia, and 
 the imperialistic designs of Japan in the Pacific. 
 Its pamphlets went so far as to excoriate allied 
 methods of warfare and to level accusations of inhu 
 manity against the Belgians. It distributed broad 
 cast throughout the country an appeal signed by 
 ninety-three German professors and intellectuals, 
 and countersigned by a few notable Americans, 
 which besought the American people not to be de 
 ceived by the "lies and calumnies" of the enemies 
 of Germany. 
 
 This propaganda left all cold except those who 
 
PLOTS AND PREPAREDNESS 73 
 
 already sympathized with Germany. Indeed it 
 reacted unfavorably against the German cause, as 
 soon as the well-authenticated reports came of Ger 
 man atrocities in Belgium, of the burning of the 
 Louvain library, and of the shelling of Rheims ca 
 thedral. The efforts of German agents then shifted, 
 concentrating in an attack upon the United States 
 Government for its alleged unneutral attitude in 
 permitting the export of munitions to the Entente. 
 In some sections of the country they were able to 
 arouse an opinion favorable to the establishment of 
 an embargo. In the Senate, on December 10, 1914, 
 a bill was offered by John D. Works of California 
 providing for the prohibition of the sale of war sup 
 plies to any belligerent nation and a similar bill was 
 fathered in the House by Charles L. Bartlett of 
 Georgia. These efforts were warmly supported by 
 various associations, some of which were ad 
 mittedly German-American societies, although the 
 majority attempted to conceal their partisan feel 
 ing under such titles as American Independence 
 Union and American Neutrality League. The latter 
 effectively displayed its interest in America and in 
 neutrality by tumultuous singing of Deutschland 
 ilber Alles and Die Wacht am Rhein. Of sincerely 
 pacifist organizations there were not a few, among 
 
74 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 which should not be forgotten the fantastic effort of 
 Henry Ford in December, 1915, to end the war by 
 sending a "Peace Ship" to Europe, designed to 
 arouse such public opinion abroad in favor of peace 
 that "the boys would be out of the trenches by 
 Christmas." The ship sailed, but the expedition, 
 which was characterized by equal amounts of hon 
 esty and foolishness, broke up shortly in dissension. 
 For the most part pacifism and pro-Germanism 
 went hand in hand a tragic alliance of good and 
 evil which was to hamper later efforts to evolve 
 an international organization for the preservation 
 of peace. 
 
 The attempts of German propagandists to influ 
 ence the policy of the Government met, as we have 
 seen, the stubborn resolve of the President not to 
 favor one camp of the belligerents by a departure 
 from international custom and law during the prog 
 ress of the war. Their efforts, however, were not 
 entirely relaxed. Appeals were made to workmen 
 to stop the war by refusing to manufacture muni 
 tions; vigorous campaigns were conducted to dis 
 credit the Administration by creating the belief 
 that it was discriminating in favor of the British. 
 But more and more Germany took to secret in 
 trigue, the strings of which were pulled by the 
 
PLOTS AND PREPAREDNESS 75 
 
 military and naval attaches, von Papen and Boy-Ed. 
 The German Ambassador, von Bernstorff, also 
 took a lively interest in the plans to control public 
 opinion and later to hamper munitions production. 
 With his approval, German manufacturing com 
 panies were organized at Bridgeport and elsewhere 
 to buy up the machinery and supplies essential to 
 the production of powder, shrapnel, and surplus 
 benzol; arrangements were made with the Bosch 
 Magneto Company to enter into contracts with the 
 Entente for fuses and at the last moment to refuse 
 to complete the contract. Von Bernstorff was care 
 ful to avoid active participation in plots for the 
 destruction of property; but his interest and com 
 plicity, together with that of Dr. Heinrich F. Albert, 
 Financial Adviser of the German Embassy, are evi 
 denced by the checks drawn on their joint account 
 and paid to convicted criminals. 
 
 One of the first of the plots was the attempted 
 blowing up of the international bridge at Vance- 
 boro, Maine, on December 31, 1914. The materials 
 for this explosion were collected and the fuse set by 
 a German reservist lieutenant, Werner Horn, who 
 admitted that he acted under the orders of von 
 Papen. Another plan of the German agents was 
 the destruction of the Welland Canal, which was 
 
76 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 entrusted to a brilliant and erratic adventurer, von 
 der Goltz, who later confessed that he was under 
 the supervision of von Papen and had secured his 
 materials from Captain Hans Tauscher, the agent 
 in New York of the Hamburg- American Line. This 
 company was involved in securing false manifests 
 for vessels that carried coal and supplies to German 
 cruisers, thus defrauding the United States, and in 
 ob taming false passports for German reservists and 
 agents; it acted, in fact, as an American branch of 
 the German Admiralty. More serious yet was an 
 attempt of the naval attache, Boy-Ed, to involve 
 the United States and Mexico in a dispute by a plot 
 to bring back Huerta. This unhappy Mexican 
 leader was arrested on the Mexican border in June, 
 1915, and shortly afterwards died. 
 
 For some months the existence of such activities 
 on the part of German agents had been suspected 
 by the public. A series of disclosures followed. In 
 July, 1915, Dr. Albert, while riding on a New York 
 elevated train, was so careless as to set his portfolio 
 on the seat for a few moments; it was speedily 
 picked up by a fellow passenger who made a hasty 
 exit. Soon afterwards the chief contents of the 
 portfolio were published. They indicated the 
 complicity of the German Embassy in different 
 
PLOTS AND PREPAREDNESS 77 
 
 attempts to control the American press and to influ 
 ence public opinion, and proved the energy of less 
 notable agents in illegal undertakings. Towards 
 the end of August, the Austrian Ambassador, Dr. 
 Constantin Dumba, made use of an American cor 
 respondent, James F. J. Archibald by name, to car 
 ry dispatches to the Central Empires. He was ar 
 rested by the British authorities at Falmouth, and 
 his effects proved Dumba s interest in plans to or 
 ganize strikes in American munitions plants. "It 
 is my impression," wrote the Austrian Ambassa 
 dor, "that we can disorganize and hold up for 
 months, if not entirely prevent, the manufacture of 
 munitions in Bethlehem and the Middle West, 
 which in the opinion of the German military at 
 tache, is of great importance and amply outweighs 
 the expenditure of money involved." Archibald 
 also carried a letter from von Papen to his wife in 
 which he wrote : " I always say to these idiotic Yan 
 kees that they had better hold their tongues." Its 
 publication did not serve to allay the warmth of 
 American feeling. 
 
 It was with great satisfaction, therefore, that the 
 public learned in September that President Wilson 
 had requested the recall of Ambassador Dumba 
 in the following words: "By reason of the admitted 
 
78 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 purpose and intent of Ambassador Dumba to con 
 spire to cripple legitimate industries of the people 
 of the United States and to interrupt their legiti 
 mate trade, and by reason of the flagrant diplo 
 matic impropriety in employing an American citizen 
 protected by an American passport, as a secret 
 bearer of official despatches through the lines of the 
 enemy of Austria-Hungary. . . . Mr. Dumba is 
 no longer acceptable to the Government of the 
 United States." The two German attaches were 
 given a longer shrift, but on the 30th of November 
 von Bernstorff was told that they were no longer ac 
 ceptable; von Papen sailed on the 22d of December 
 and was followed a week later by Boy -Ed. 
 
 During the two preceding months there had been 
 a constant series of strikes and explosions in muni 
 tions plants and industrial works, and public opin 
 ion was now thoroughly aroused. The feeling that 
 Germany and Austria- were thus through their 
 agents virtually carrying on warfare in the United 
 States was intensified by the revelations of Dr. Jo 
 seph Goricar, formerly an Austrian consul, but a 
 Jugoslav who sympathized with the Entente; ac 
 cording to his statement every Austrian consul in the 
 country was "a center of intrigue of the most crim 
 inal character." His charges came at the moment 
 
PLOTS AND PREPAREDNESS 79 
 
 when Americans were reading that the number of 
 strikes in munitions plants was unparalleled, no less 
 than one hundred and two in a few months, of 
 which fifty were in Bridgeport, which was known to 
 be a center of German activities. Explosions and 
 fires at the plants of the Bethlehem Steel Com 
 pany and the Baldwin Locomotive Works, and at 
 the Roebling wire-rope shop in Trenton were of 
 mysterious origin. 
 
 To what extent explosions in munitions plants 
 were the result of German incendiarism and not of 
 an accidental nature, it is difficult to determine. 
 But the Department of Justice was so thoroughly 
 convinced of the far-reaching character of German 
 plots that President Wilson, in his annual message 
 of December, 1915, frankly denounced the "hy 
 phenates" who lent their aid to such intrigues. "I 
 am sorry to say that the gravest threats against our 
 national peace and safety have been uttered within 
 our own borders. There are citizens of the United 
 States . . . who have poured the poison of dis 
 loyalty into the very arteries of our national life; 
 who have sought to bring the authority and good 
 name of our Government into contempt, to destroy 
 our industries wherever they thought it effective 
 for their vindictive purposes to strike at them, and 
 
80 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 to debase our politics to the uses of foreign intrigue." 
 His attack drew forth the bitter resentment of the 
 foreign language press, but was hailed with delight 
 in the East, where German intrigues aroused as 
 great excitement against the Fatherland as the sub 
 marine campaign. Nor was it calmed by the con 
 tinuance of fires and explosions and the evident 
 complicity of German officials. During the spring 
 of 1916 a German agent, von Igel, who occupied the 
 former offices of von Papen, was arrested, and the 
 activities of Franz von Rintelen, who had placed 
 incendiary bombs on vessels leaving New York 
 with food and supplies for the Allies, were pub 
 lished. Taken in conjunction with the sinking of 
 the Sussex, German plots were now stimulating 
 the American people to a keen sense of their inter 
 est in the war, and preparing them effectively for a 
 new attitude toward foreign affairs in general. 
 
 It was inevitable that such revelations should 
 have created a widespread demand for increased 
 military efficiency. The nation was approaching 
 the point where force might become necessary, and 
 yet it was in no way prepared for warfare, either on 
 land or sea. During the first months of the war the 
 helplessness of the United States had been laid bare 
 by General Leonard Wood, who declared that we 
 
PLOTS AND PREPAREDNESS 81 
 
 had never fought a really first-class nation and 
 "were pitifully unprepared, should such a calamity 
 be thrust upon us." The regular army " available 
 to face such a crisis" would be "just about equal to 
 the police forces of Boston, New York, and Phila 
 delphia." The "preparedness movement " thus in 
 augurated was crystallized by the formation of the 
 National Security League, designed to organize 
 citizens in such a way "as may make practical an 
 intelligent expression of public opinion and may en 
 sure for the nation an adequate system of national 
 defense." Pacifists and pro-Germans immediately 
 organized in opposition; and the movement was 
 hampered by President Wilson s unwillingness to 
 cooperate in any way. He was flatly opposed, in 
 the autumn of 1914 and the spring of the following 
 year, to compulsory military service: "We will not 
 ask our young men to spend the best years of their 
 lives making soldiers of themselves." He insisted 
 that the American people had always been able to 
 defend themselves and should be able to continue 
 to do so without altering their military traditions. 
 It must not be forgotten that at this time Wilson 
 still believed in absolute isolation and refused to 
 consider force as an element in our foreign policy. 
 His attitude was sufficient to render fruitless various 
 
m WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 resolutions presented by Congressman Augustus 
 P. Gardner and Senator George E. Chamber 
 lain, who proposed improvements in the military 
 system. Congress was pacifically-minded. This 
 was the time when many Congressmen were ad 
 vocating an embargo on arms, and so far from de 
 siring to learn how to make and use munitions of 
 war they concentrated their efforts on methods of 
 preventing their export to the Allies. 
 
 The preparedness movement, none the less, 
 spread through the country and the influence of the 
 National Security League did much to inform the 
 public. In the summer of 1915 there was organized 
 at Plattsburg, New York, under the authority of 
 General Wood, a civilian camp designed to give 
 some experience in the rudiments of military 
 science. It was not encouraged by the Adminis 
 tration, but at the end of the year the President 
 himself confessed that he had been converted. He 
 was about to abandon his policy of isolation for his 
 new ideal of international service, and he realized 
 the logical necessity of supporting it by at least a 
 show of force. Mere negative "neutrality" no 
 longer sufficed. His fear that greater military 
 strength might lead to an aggressive spirit in the 
 country had been obliterated by the attacks of 
 
PLOTS AND PREPAREDNESS 83 
 
 submarines and by the German plots. He admitted 
 frankly that he had changed his mind. "I would 
 be ashamed," he said, "if I had not learned some 
 thing in fourteen months." To the surprise of many 
 who had counted upon his pacific tendencies to the 
 end, he did what he had not heretofore done for 
 any of his policies; he left his desk in Washington 
 and took to the platform. 
 
 During January and February, 1916, Presi 
 dent Wilson delivered a succession of speeches in 
 Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. 
 Louis, and other places in the upper Mississippi 
 Valley, emphasizing his conversion to prepared 
 ness. Aware that his transformation would be re 
 garded as anti-German and tending to draw the 
 United States into the conflict, he apparently 
 sought out pro-German and pacifist centers, and 
 for the first time utilized something of the tradi 
 tional "patriotic" style to rouse those citizens who, 
 as yet, failed to appreciate the significance of the 
 international situation. "I know that you are de 
 pending upon me to keep the nation out of war. 
 So far I have done so, and I pledge you my word 
 that, God helping me, I will if it is possible. You 
 have laid another duty upon me. You have bidden 
 me see that nothing stains or impairs the honor of 
 
84 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 the United States. And that is a matter not within 
 my control. That depends upon what others do, 
 not upon what the Government of the United 
 States does, and therefore there may be at any mo 
 ment a time when I cannot both preserve the honor 
 and the peace of the United States. Do not exact 
 of me an impossible and contradictory thing, but 
 stand ready and insist that everybody that repre 
 sents you should stand ready to provide the means 
 for maintaining the honor of the United States." 
 And later: "America cannot be an ostrich with its 
 head in the sand. America cannot shut itself out 
 from the rest of the world. . . . Do you want 
 the situation to be such that all the President can 
 do is to write messages, to utter words of protest? 
 If these breaches of international law which are in 
 daily danger of occurring should touch the very 
 vital interests and honor of the United States, do 
 you wish to do nothing about it? Do you wish to 
 have all the world say that the flag of the United 
 States, which we all love, can be stained with im 
 punity?" What a transformation from those days 
 of December, 1914, when he believed that mili 
 tary preparation would prove that the American 
 people had been thrown off their balance by a 
 war with which they had nothing to do ! And what 
 
PLOTS AND PREPAREDNESS 85 
 
 a revelation of the wounds inflicted by the barbed 
 taunts cast against the President for his patience 
 in the writing of diplomatic notes! 
 
 Had the President carried his enthusiasm into 
 actual accomplishment and provided for effective 
 military and naval preparation, his claim to the 
 title of great statesman would be more clear. Un 
 fortunately when it came to forcing Congress to 
 take the necessary steps, he failed. The inertia 
 and reluctance of pacifist or partisan representa 
 tives would have been broken by Roosevelt. But 
 Wilson did mere lip-service to the principle of mili 
 tary efficiency. The bills introduced in Congress 
 were denounced by military experts as half-meas 
 ures likely to produce no efficient result, and the 
 President, who in most matters was determined to 
 dominate, in this permitted congressional com 
 mittees to have their way. The protests of the 
 Secretary of War, Lindley M. Garrison, led to his 
 resignation; and (most curious development) the 
 President replaced him by a man, Newton D. 
 Baker, who, whatever his capacity, was gener 
 ally known as a pacifist. Wilson s intelligence 
 told him that military preparation was neces 
 sary, if his policy of international service was to 
 be anything more than academic; but his pacific 
 
86 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 instincts prevented him from securing real military 
 efficiency. 
 
 An example of the unreadiness of the United 
 States was furnished in the late spring and summer 
 of 1916, when relations with Mexico became 
 strained almost to the breaking point. President 
 Wilson s handling of the knotty Mexican problem 
 had been characteristic. He had temporized in the 
 hope that anything like a break might be avoided 
 and was resolutely opposed to formal armed inter 
 vention. But after refusing to recognize Huerta, 
 who had gained his position of provisional presi 
 dent of Mexico through the murder of Madero, in 
 which he was evidently implicated, the President 
 had ordered the occupation of Vera Cruz by United 
 States troops in retaliation for the arrest of an 
 American landing party and Huerta s refusal to fire 
 an apologetic salute. Huerta was forced to give up 
 his position and fled, but the crisis continued and 
 American-Mexican relations were not improved. 
 The country was left in the hands of three rival 
 presidents, of whom Carranza proved the strong 
 est, and, after an attempt at mediation in which the 
 three chief South American powers participated, 
 President Wilson decided to recognize him. But 
 Mexican conditions remained chaotic and American 
 
PLOTS AND PREPAREDNESS 87 
 
 interests in Mexico were either threatened or 
 destroyed. In the spring of 1916 an attack on 
 American territory led by a bandit, Francisco Villa, 
 again roused Wilson to action. He dispatched 
 General John J. Pershing across the border to pur 
 sue and catch Villa. The expedition was difficult, 
 but well-conducted; it extended far south of the 
 frontier and provoked the protests of Carranza. 
 At the moment when Pershing s advance guard 
 seemed to have its hands on the bandit, orders were 
 given to cease the pursuit. 
 
 The opponents of the Administration had some 
 excuse for laughing at the "inglorious and ineffec 
 tual war" thus waged. It had failed to result in the 
 capture of Villa and it gave rise to serious danger of 
 an open break with Mexico. On the 21st of June 
 an attack at Carrizal by Carranza s troops resulted 
 in the capture of some United States cavalrymen 
 and the mobilization of the national guard troops 
 for the protection of the border. But President 
 Wilson was not to be drawn into intervention. He 
 might be compelled to exercise force in carrying 
 out his ideals of international service against an 
 international criminal like Germany; he would not 
 use it against a weaker neighbor and particularly 
 at the moment when the United States must be 
 
88 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 free to face European complications. But the 
 Mexican crisis proved definitely the weakness of 
 the military system. Though the regulars who ac 
 companied Pershing proved their worth, the clumsy 
 inefficient mobilization of the National Guard, on 
 the other hand, indicated as plainly as possible the 
 lack of trained troops and officers. 
 
 The President s determination not to intervene 
 in Mexico probably assured him many votes in the 
 pacifist regions of the Middle West in the presiden 
 tial election of 1916. That he would be renomi- 
 nated by the Democrats was a foregone conclusion. 
 He had alienated the machine leaders by his strict 
 domination of Congress and the party; if he had 
 permitted certain political leaders to distribute offi 
 ces for necessary organization interests, he had seen 
 to it, none the less, that the Democratic bosses had 
 no share in the determination of policies. Still they 
 could not hope to prevent his nomination. What 
 ever chance the party might have in the coming 
 election lay in the personal strength of Wilson with 
 the masses. In the South and the districts west of 
 the Mississippi he was regarded as the greatest 
 Democrat since Jackson. His patience in dealing 
 with Germany, as with Carranza, convinced them 
 of his desire for peace; the slogan, "He has kept us 
 
PLOTS AND PREPAREDNESS 39 
 
 out of war," was a powerful argument in those re 
 gions. His attitude towards labor had been friend 
 ly, so that the support of the unions in the large 
 industrial centers might be expected. Placards 
 were posted showing a poor man s family with the 
 caption, "He has protected me and mine," in an 
 swer to the Republican posters which showed a 
 widow and orphans (presumably of a drowned 
 American citizen) and the caption, "He has neg 
 lected me and mine." The remnants of the Pro 
 gressives, who were not purely Roosevelt support 
 ers, were attracted by Wilson s legislative pro 
 gramme and record of accomplishment. He could 
 look to an independent vote such as no other 
 Democrat could hope for. 
 
 Despite this strength, the Republican leaders, if 
 they could succeed in effecting a reunion of their 
 party, awaited the results of the election with con 
 fidence. They counted chiefly upon the personal 
 unpopularity of Wilson on the Atlantic seaboard 
 and the normal Republican vote in the industrial 
 centers of the Middle West. His foreign policy, 
 east of the Mississippi, was generally looked upon 
 as anaemic and nebulous. He had permitted, so 
 the Republicans contended, the honor of the coun 
 try to be stained and Americans to be destroyed, 
 
90 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 without effective action. His early opposition to 
 preparedness and the half-hearted measures of 
 army reform had proved his weakness, at least to 
 the satisfaction of Republican stump orators. He 
 had won the hearty dislike of the bankers, the 
 manufacturers, and the merchants by his attacks 
 on capitalist interests and by his support of labor 
 unions. The Clayton Act, which exempted strikes 
 from Federal injunctions, and the Adamson Act, 
 which granted, under threat, the immediate de 
 mands of the striking railroad employees, were 
 cited as clear proof of his demagogic character. 
 Furthermore, while he alienated the pro-Entente 
 elements in New England and the Eastern States, 
 he had drawn upon himself the hatred of the 
 German-Americans by his attacks upon hyphen 
 ates and his refusal to accept an embargo on 
 American munitions. 
 
 Had the Republicans been willing to accept 
 Theodore Roosevelt, victory would probably have 
 come to them. He alone could have gathered in 
 the Progressive and independent vote, and that of 
 the Pacific coast, which ultimately went to Wilson. 
 But the Old Guard of the Republicans refused to 
 consider Roosevelt; they could not take a man who 
 had broken party lines four years before; above all 
 
PLOTS AND PREPAREDNESS 91 
 
 they wanted a "safe and sane" President, who 
 would play the political game according to rule 
 the rule of the bosses and they knew that were 
 Roosevelt elected they could not hope to share in 
 the spoils. The Republican convention ultimately 
 settled upon Charles E. Hughes, who certainly was 
 not beloved by the bosses, but who was regarded as 
 "steadier" than Roosevelt. The latter, in order to 
 defeat Wilson, refused the offer of the Progressives, 
 practically disbanded the party he had created, and 
 called upon his friends to return with him to their 
 first allegiance. 
 
 Hughes did not prove a strong candidate. 
 Whereas Wilson had stated his position on the Ger 
 man-American problem plainly, "I neither seek 
 the favor nor fear the displeasure of that small alien 
 element among us which puts loyalty to any foreign 
 power before loyalty to the United States," Hughes 
 was ordered by his party managers not to offend 
 foreign-born voters, and in his attempt to steer a 
 middle course, gave a clear impression of vacilla 
 tion. Many of those who had been most thor 
 oughly disgusted with Wilson turned back to him 
 again, as the weeks passed and Hughes more and 
 more sought refuge in vague generalizations. In a 
 campaign in which the issues were largely personal 
 
92 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 the Republican candidate s failure to evolve a con 
 structive policy greatly weakened him, especially 
 as Wilson had the advantage of the maxim that it 
 is best not to change horses in the middle of the 
 stream. Finally, Hughes did not prove adept in 
 reconciling the Progressives. Indeed it was said to 
 be a political gaucherie on his part, or that of his 
 advisers, which alienated the friends of Gover 
 nor Hiram Johnson of California and threw the 
 electoral vote of that State to Wilson. 
 
 California turned the scale. When on the even 
 ing of the 7th of November the first returns came in 
 and it was seen that Wilson had lost New York and 
 Illinois, the election of Hughes was generally con 
 ceded. Even the New York Times and the World 
 admitted Wilson s defeat. But the next morning, 
 news from the west indicated that the President 
 still had a chance. Later in the day the chance 
 grew larger; he had won Ohio; Minnesota and Cali 
 fornia were doubtful. In both States voting was 
 close; if Wilson won either the election would be 
 his. It was not until the llth of November that 
 the returns from California definitely showed a 
 small Wilson plurality, and only on the 21st that 
 the Republicans finally abandoned hope. Wilson 
 had secured 277 electoral votes to 254 for Hughes. 
 
PLOTS AND PREPAREDNESS 93 
 
 He had been saved by the pacifist Middle and Far 
 West, in combination with the South. But the vic 
 tory meant something far different from peace at 
 any price. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 AMERICA DECIDES 
 
 THE presidential campaign of 1916, taken in con 
 junction with the increasing tension of European 
 relations, forced Wilson to a further development 
 of his international ideals and a more definite 
 formulation of the means by which to attain them. 
 As we have observed, the spring of that year saw 
 him reject the doctrine of isolation. "We are par 
 ticipants," he said on the 27th of May, "whether 
 we would or not, in the life of the world. The inter 
 ests of all nations are our own also. We are part 
 ners with the rest. What affects mankind is inevi 
 tably our affair as well as the affair of the nations of 
 Europe and of Asia." This recognition of our in 
 terest in world affairs immediately took him con 
 siderably beyond the position he had assumed 
 during the earlier stages of the submarine contro 
 versy. Until the spring of 1916 he had restricted 
 his aims to the championship of neutral and human 
 
 94 
 
AMERICA DECIDES 95 
 
 rights in time of war. But now he began to de 
 mand something more far-reaching, namely a sys 
 tem that would prevent unjust war altogether and 
 would protect the rights of all peoples in time of 
 peace. He insisted, in this same speech of the 27th 
 of May, before the League to Enforce Peace at 
 Washington, "First that every people has a right 
 to choose the sovereignty under which they shall 
 live. . . . Second, that the small states of the 
 world have a right to enjoy the same respect for 
 their sovereignty and for their territorial integrity 
 that great and powerful nations expect and insist 
 upon. And, third, that the world has a right to be 
 free from every disturbance of its peace that has its 
 origin in aggression and disregard of the rights of 
 peoples and nations . These words sum up the gist 
 of his international aims during the three following 
 years. His later speeches are merely refinement 
 of details. 
 
 In order that these ends might be secured it was 
 necessary that some international system be in 
 augurated other than that which had permitted the 
 selfishness of the great powers to produce war in 
 the past. In his search for a concrete mechanism 
 to realize his ideals and secure them from violation, 
 Wilson seized upon the essential principles of the 
 
96 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 League to Enforce Peace, of which William How* 
 ard Tait was president. The basis of permanent 
 peace, Wilson insisted, could be found only by sub 
 stituting international cooperation in place of con 
 flict, through a mobilization of the public opinion 
 of the world against international lawbreakers : " an 
 universal association of the nations to maintain the 
 inviolate security of the highway of the seas for the 
 common and unhindered use of all the nations of the 
 world, and to prevent any war begun either con 
 trary to treaty covenants or without warning and 
 full submission of the causes to the opinion of the 
 world a virtual guarantee of territorial integri 
 ty and political independence." These were the 
 principles and methods which formed the keynote 
 of his foreign policy until the end of the Peace Con 
 ference. The first part of the programme, that which 
 concerned the security of the seas and which orig 
 inated in the particular circumstances of 1915, 
 faded from his sight to a large extent; the second 
 portion, more general in its nature, became of in 
 creasing importance until, as Article X of the 
 League Covenant, it seemed to him the heart of 
 the entire settlement. 
 
 The unselfish nature of his idealism, as well as his 
 continued detachment from both camps of the 
 
AMERICA DECIDES 97 
 
 belligerents, was obvious. "We have nothing ma 
 terial of any kind to ask for ourselves," he said, 
 "and are quite aware that we are in no sense or 
 degree parties to the present quarrel. Our interest 
 is only in peace and in its future guarantees." But 
 noblesse oblige, and we must serve those who have 
 not had our good fortune. "The commands of 
 democracy are as imperative as its privileges are 
 wide and generous. Its compulsion is upon us. 
 . . . We are not worthy to stand here unless we 
 ourselves be in deed and truth real democrats and 
 servants of mankind." 
 
 That the United States might be drawn into the 
 conflict evidently seemed possible to the President, 
 despite pacific whispers that came from Germany 
 in the spring and summer of 1916. There was a 
 note of apprehension in his speeches. No one could 
 tell when the extremist faction in Berlin might gain 
 control and withdraw the Sussex pledge. The tem 
 per of Americans was being tried by continued sink 
 ings, although the exact circumstances of each case 
 were difficult to determine. The attacks made by 
 the German U-53 immediately off the American 
 coast and the deportation of Belgian civilians into 
 Germany made more difficult the preservation of 
 amicable relations. In view of the possibility of war 
 
98 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Wilson wanted to define the issue exactly. "We 
 have never yet," he said at Omaha, a peace center, on 
 the 5th of October, "sufficiently formulated our pro 
 gramme for America with regard to the part she is 
 going to play in the world, and it is imperative that 
 she should formulate it at once. ... It is very 
 important that the statesmen of other parts of the 
 world should understand America. . . . We are 
 holding off, not because we do not feel concerned, 
 but because when we exert the force of this nation 
 we want to know what we are exerting it for." 
 Ten days later at Shadowlawn he said: "Define 
 the elements, let us know that we are not fighting 
 for the prevalence of this nation over that, for the 
 ambitions of this group of nations as compared 
 with the ambitions of that group of nations; let us 
 once be convinced that we are called in to a great 
 combination to fight for the rights of mankind and 
 America will unite her force and spill her blood for 
 the great things which she has always believed in 
 and followed." He thus gave warning that the 
 United States might have to fight. He wanted 
 to be certain, however, that it did not fight as so 
 many other nations have fought, greedily or vindic 
 tively, but rather as in a crusade and for clearly 
 defined ideals. 
 
AMERICA DECIDES 99 
 
 His reelection gave to the President an opportu 
 nity for bringing before the world his international 
 aims. He purposed not merely to end the exist 
 ing conflict but also to provide a basis for perma 
 nent peace and the security of democracy. During 
 the early summer of 1916 he had received from 
 Berlin hints that his mediation would not be un 
 acceptable and it is possible that he planned at that 
 time new efforts to bring the war to a close. But 
 such a step was bound to be regarded as pro-Ger 
 man and in the state of opinion immediately after 
 the Sussex crisis would have produced a storm of 
 American protests. Then the entrance of Rumania 
 into the war so encouraged the Entente powers that 
 there seemed little chance of winning French and 
 British acceptance of mediation. The presidential 
 election further delayed any overt step towards 
 peace negotiations. Finally the wave of anti- 
 German feeling that swept the United States in 
 November, on account of Belgian deportations, 
 induced Wilson to hold back the note which he 
 had already drafted. But it was important not 
 to delay his pacific efforts over-long, since news 
 came to Washington that unless Germany could 
 obtain a speedy peace the extremist group in Berlin 
 would insist upon a resumption of "ruthless" 
 
100 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 submarine warfare. In these circumstances, early 
 in December, the President prepared to issue 
 his note. 
 
 But Germany acted more rapidly. Warned of 
 Wilson s purpose the Berlin Government, on De 
 cember 12, 1916, proposed negotiations. The oc 
 casion seemed to them propitious. Rumania had 
 gone down to disastrous defeat. Russia was torn 
 by corruption and popular discontent. On the 
 western front, if the Germans had failed at Verdun, 
 they were aware of the deep disappointment of the 
 Allies at the paltry results of the great Somme 
 drive. German morale at home was weakening; 
 but if the Allies could be pictured as refusing all 
 terms and determined upon the destruction of 
 Germany, the people would doubtless agree to the 
 unrestricted use of the submarine as purely defen 
 sive in character, even if it brought to the Allies the 
 questionable assistance of America. The German 
 note itself contained no definite terms. But its 
 boastful tone permitted the interpretation that 
 Germany would consider no peace which did not 
 leave Central and Southeastern Europe under Teu 
 ton domination; the specific terms later communi 
 cated to the American Government in secret, 
 verified this suspicion. A thinly veiled threat to 
 
AMERICA DECtimS 101* 
 
 neutral nations was to be read between the lines of 
 the German suggestion of negotiations. 
 
 Although it was obvious that he would be ac 
 cused of acting in collusion with Germany, Presi 
 dent Wilson decided not to postpone the peace note 
 already planned. He looked upon the crisis as se 
 rious, for if peace were not secured at this time the 
 chances of the United States remaining out of the 
 war were constantly growing less. If he could com 
 pel a clear definition of war aims on both sides, the 
 mutual suspicion of the warring peoples might be 
 removed; the German people might perceive that 
 the war was not in reality for them one of defense; 
 or finally the Allies, toward whom Wilson was be 
 ing driven by the threats of German extremists, 
 might define their position in such terms as would 
 justify him before the world in joining with them in 
 a conflict not waged for selfish national purposes 
 but for the welfare of humanity. Issued on Decem 
 ber 18, 1916, his note summed up the chief points 
 of his recently developed policy. It emphasized 
 the interest of the United States in the future peace 
 of the world, the irreparable injury to civilization 
 that might result from a further continuance of the 
 existing struggle, the advantages that would follow 
 an explicit exposure of belligerent purposes, and the 
 
WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 possibility of making "the permanent concord of 
 the nations a hope of the immediate future, a 
 concert of nations immediately practicable." 
 
 As a step towards peace the note was unsuccess 
 ful. Germany was evasive. There was nothing 
 her Government wanted less than the definite ex 
 posure of her purposes that Wilson asked. Her 
 leaders were anxious to begin negotiations while 
 German armies still held conquered territories as 
 pawns to be used at the peace table. They would 
 not discuss a League of Nations until Germany s 
 continental position was secured. The Allies on 
 the other hand would not make peace with an un 
 beaten Germany, which evidently persisted in the 
 hope of dominating weaker nationalities and said 
 no word of reparations for the acknowledged 
 wrongs committed. Feeling ran high in England 
 and France because Wilson s note had seemed to 
 place the belligerents on the same moral plane, in 
 its statement that the objects on both sides "are 
 virtually the same, as stated in general terms to 
 their own people and to the world." The state 
 ment was verbally accurate and rang with a cer 
 tain grim irony which may have touched Wilson s 
 sense of humor. But the Allies were not in a state 
 of mind to appreciate such humor. Their official 
 
AMERICA DECIDES 103 
 
 answer, however, was frank, and in substance ac 
 cepted the principles of permanent peace pro 
 pounded by Wilson. It was evident to most Amer 
 icans that the main purpose of Germany was to 
 establish herself as the dominating power of the 
 continent and possibly of the world; the aim of the 
 Allies, on the other hand, seemed to be the peace of 
 the world based upon democracy and justice rather 
 than material force. 
 
 The President s attempt thus cleared the air. It 
 made plain to the majority of Americans that in 
 sympathy, at least, the United States must be 
 definitely aligned with Great Britain and France. 
 Furthermore the replies of the belligerents gave to 
 Wilson an opportunity to inform the world more 
 definitely of the aims of the United States, in case 
 it should be drawn into the war. This he did in a 
 speech delivered to the Senate on January 22, 1917. 
 America would play her part in world affairs, he 
 said, but the other nations must clearly understand 
 the conditions of our participation. The basis of 
 peace must be the right of each individual nation to 
 decide its destiny for itself without interference from 
 a stronger alien power . "I am proposing as it were, 
 that the nations should with one accord adopt the 
 doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the 
 
104 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 world : that no nation should seek to extend its pol 
 ity over any other nation or people, but that every 
 people should be left free to determine its own pol 
 ity, its own way of development, unhindered, un- 
 threatened, unafraid, the little along with the great 
 and powerful." Instead of the old system of alli 
 ances there should be a general concert of powers: 
 "There is no entangling alliance in a concert of 
 powers. When all unite to act in the same sense and 
 with the same purpose, all act in the common inter 
 est and are free to live their own lives under a com 
 mon protection." As the result of such a concert no 
 one power would dominate the sea or the land; 
 armaments might safely be limited; peace would be 
 organized by the major force of mankind. As a 
 guarantee of future justice and tranquillity the 
 terms that settled the present war must be based 
 upon justice and not be of the sort ordinarily dic 
 tated by the victor to the vanquished. It must be 
 a "peace without victory." Thus while Wilson 
 warned Germany that her ambitions for conti 
 nental domination would not be tolerated, he also 
 warned the Allies that they could not count upon 
 the United States to help them to crush Germany 
 for their selfish individual purposes. 
 
 This speech, despite the unfortunate phrase. 
 
AMERICA DECIDES 105 
 
 "peace without victory," was hailed in all liberal 
 circles, amongst the Allies and in the United States, 
 as a noble charter of the new international order. 
 Wilson had expressed the hope that he was "speak 
 ing for the silent mass of mankind everywhere 
 who have as yet had no place or opportunity to 
 speak their real hearts out concerning the death 
 and ruin they see to have come already upon the 
 persons and the homes they hold most dear." This 
 hope was doubtless realized. The first reaction in 
 France and England was one of rather puzzled 
 contempt, if we may judge by the press. But the 
 newspaper writers soon found that what Wilson 
 said many people had been thinking, and waiting 
 for some one to say. Hall Caine wrote to the Public 
 Ledger, "Let President Wilson take heart from the 
 first reception of his remarkable speech. The best 
 opinion here is one of deep feeling and profound 
 admiration." From that moment Wilson began to 
 approach the position he was shortly to hold that 
 of moral leader of the world. 
 
 The President had been anxious to make plain 
 his principles, before the United States became in 
 volved in the conflict through the withdrawal of 
 German submarine pledges, as well as to convince 
 the world that every honest effort possible had been 
 
106 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 made to preserve the peace. He was only just 
 in time. Already the advocates of ruthlessness in 
 Berlin had persuaded the Kaiser and Bethmann- 
 Hollweg. They recognized that the resumption of 
 unrestricted submarine warfare meant, in all prob 
 ability, the intervention of the United States, but 
 they recked little of the consequences. On January 
 16, 1917, the Kaiser telegraphed : " If a break with 
 America is unavoidable, it cannot be helped; we 
 proceed." The same day the Secretary of Foreign 
 Affairs, Zimmermann, telegraphed to the German 
 Minister in Mexico, instructing him to form an alli 
 ance with Mexico in the event of war between Ger 
 many and the United States, and to offer as bribe 
 the States of New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas; 
 he also suggested the possibility of winning Japan 
 from her allegiance to the Entente and persuading 
 her to enter this prospective alliance. 
 
 On the 31st of January, von Bernstorff threw off 
 the mask. The German Ambassador informed our 
 Government of the withdrawal of the Sussex pledge. 
 On and after the 1st of February, German sub 
 marines would sink on sight all ships met within a 
 delimited zone around the British Isles and in the 
 Mediterranean. They would permit the sailing of 
 a few American steamships, however, provided 
 
AMERICA DECIDES 107 
 
 they followed a certain defined route to Falmouth 
 and nowhere else, and provided there were marked 
 "on ship s hull and superstructure three vertical 
 stripes one meter wide, to be painted alternately 
 white and red. Each mast should show a large flag 
 checkered white and red, and the stern the Amer 
 ican national flag. Care should be taken that dur 
 ing dark, national flag and painted marks are easily 
 recognizable from a distance, and that the boats are 
 well lighted throughout." Other conditions fol 
 lowed. There might sail one steamship a week " in 
 each direction, with arrival at Falmouth on Sunday 
 and departure from Falmouth on Wednesday." 
 Furthermore the United States Government must 
 guarantee "that no contraband (according to the 
 German contraband list) is carried by those steam 
 ships." Such were the orders issued to the United 
 States. No native American could escape the hu 
 mor of the stipulations, which for a moment pre 
 vented the national irritation from swelling into an 
 outburst of deep-seated wrath. 
 
 There seems to have been little hesitation on the 
 part of the President. On April 19, 1916, he had 
 warned Germany that unrestricted submarine war 
 fare meant a severance of diplomatic relations. 
 Now, on February 3, 1917, addressing both houses 
 
108 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 of Congress, he announced that those relations had 
 been broken. Von Bernstorff was given his papers 
 and the American Ambassador, James W. Gerard, 
 was recalled from Berlin. No other course of action 
 could have been contemplated in view of the for 
 mality of the President s warning and the definite- 
 ness of Germany s defiance. Despite the protests of 
 scattered pacifists, the country was as nearly a unit 
 in its approval of Wilson s action as its heterogene 
 ous national character permitted. All the pent-up 
 emotions of the past two years found expression in 
 quiet but unmistakable applause at the departure 
 of the German Ambassador. 
 
 The promptitude of the President s dismissal of 
 von Bernstorff did not conceal the disappointment 
 which he experienced from Germany s revelation of 
 her true purposes. He seems to have hoped to the 
 end that the German liberals would succeed in 
 bringing their Government to accept moderate 
 terms of peace. Even now he expressed the hope 
 that Germany s actions would not be such as to 
 force the United States into the War: "I refuse to 
 believe that it is the intention of the German au 
 thorities to do in fact what they have warned us 
 they will feel at liberty to do. . . . Only actual overt 
 acts on their part can make me believe it even now." 
 
AMERICA DECIDES 109 
 
 But "if American ships and American lives should 
 in fact be sacrificed by their naval commanders in 
 heedless contravention of the just and reasonable 
 understandings of international law and the ob 
 vious dictates of humanity, I shall take the liberty 
 of coming again before the Congress to ask that 
 authority be given me to use any means that may 
 be necessary for the protection of our seamen and 
 our people in the prosecution of their peaceful and 
 legitimate errands on the high seas. I can do noth 
 ing less. I take it for granted that all neutral gov 
 ernments will take the same course." He was care 
 ful, moreover, to underline the fact that his ac 
 tion was dictated always by a consistent desire 
 for peace: "We wish to serve no selfish ends. 
 We seek merely to stand true alike in thought and 
 in action to the immemorial principles of our peo 
 ple. . . . These are the bases of peace, not war. 
 God grant we may not be challenged to defend 
 them by acts of willful injustice on the part of 
 the Government of Germany!" 
 
 But Germany proceeded heedlessly. Warned that 
 American intervention would result only from overt 
 acts, the German Admiralty hastened to commit 
 such acts. From the 3d of February to the 1st of 
 April, eight American vessels were sunk by sub- 
 
110 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 marines and forty-eight American lives thus lost. 
 Because of the practical blockade of American 
 ports which followed the hesitation of American 
 shipping interests to send boats unarmed into the 
 dangers of the "war zone," President Wilson came 
 again to Congress on the 26th of February to ask 
 authority to arm merchant vessels for purposes of 
 defense. Again he stressed his unwillingness to 
 enter upon formal warfare and emphasized the 
 idealistic aspect of the issue: "It is not of mate 
 rial interests merely that we are thinking. It is, 
 rather, of fundamental human rights, chief of all 
 the right of life itself. I am thinking not only of the 
 rights of Americans to go and come about their 
 proper business by way of the sea, but also of some 
 thing much deeper, much more fundamental than 
 that. I am thinking of those rights of humanity 
 without which there is no civilization. ... I 
 cannot imagine any man with American principles 
 at his heart hesitating to defend these things." 
 
 Blinded by prejudice and tradition, a handful of 
 Senators, twelve " willful men," as Wilson described 
 them, blocked, through a filibuster, the resolution 
 granting the power requested by the President. 
 But the storm of popular obloquy which covered 
 them proved that the nation as a whole was 
 
AMERICA DECIDES 111 
 
 determined to support him in the defense of Amer 
 ican rights. The country was stirred to the depths. 
 The publication of the plans of Germany for involv 
 ing the United States in war with Mexico and Japan 
 came merely as added stimulus. So also of the 
 story of the cruelties heaped by the Germans on 
 the American prisoners of the Yarrowdale. There 
 was so much of justice in the cause that passion was 
 notable by its absence. When finally on the 17th 
 of March news came of the torpedoing of the Vigi- 
 lancia without warning, America was prepared and 
 calmly eager for the President s demand that 
 Congress recognize the existence of a state of war. 
 The demand was made by Wilson in an extra 
 ordinary joint session of Congress, held on the 2d 
 of April. In this, possibly his greatest speech, he 
 was careful not to blur the idealistic principles 
 which, since the spring of 1916, he had been formu 
 lating. War existed because Germany by its ac 
 tions had thrust upon the United States the status 
 of belligerent. But the American people must 
 meet the challenge with their purpose clearly be 
 fore them. "We must put excited feeling away. 
 Our motive will not be revenge or the victori 
 ous assertion of the physical might of the nation, 
 but only the vindication of right, of humar right, 
 
WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 of which we are only a single champion. . . . 
 The wrongs against which we now array ourselves 
 are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots 
 of human life." He went on to define the objects 
 of the war more specifically, referring to his earlier 
 addresses: "Our object now, as then, is to vindi 
 cate the principles of peace and justice in the life of 
 the world as against selfish and autocratic power 
 and to set up amongst the really free and self- 
 governed peoples of the world such a concert of 
 purpose and action as will henceforth ensure the 
 observance of those principles." Democracy must 
 be the soul of the new international order: "A 
 steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained 
 except by a partnership of democratic nations. No 
 autocratic government could be trusted to keep 
 faith within it or observe its covenants. . . . 
 Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their 
 honor steady to a common end and prefer the inter 
 ests of mankind to any narrow interest of their 
 own." Because the existing German Government 
 was clearly at odds with all such ideals, "We are 
 glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false 
 pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate 
 peace of the world and for the liberation of its 
 peoples, the German people included : for the rights 
 
AMERICA DECIDES 113 
 
 of nations great and small and the privilege of men 
 everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedi 
 ence. The world must be made safe for democ 
 racy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested 
 foundations of political liberty." 
 
 Wilson thus imagined the war as a crusade, the 
 sort of crusade for American ideals which Clay and 
 Webster once imagined. He was in truth originat 
 ing nothing, but rather resuscitating the generous 
 dreams which had once inspired those statesmen. 
 In conclusion, he reiterated his love of peace. 
 " But the right is more precious than peace, and we 
 shall fight for the things which we have always car 
 ried nearest our hearts, for democracy, for the 
 right of those who submit to authority to have a 
 voice in their own governments, for the rights and 
 liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion 
 of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall 
 bring peace and safety .to all nations and make the 
 world itself at last free." At the moment of the 
 declaration of war Wilson was still the man of peace, 
 and the war upon which the nation was embarking 
 was, in his mind, a war to ensure peace. To such a 
 task of peace and liberation, he concluded in a pero 
 ration reminiscent of Lincoln and Luther, "we can 
 dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that 
 
114 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 we are and everything that we have, with the pride 
 of those who know that the day has come when 
 America is privileged to spend her blood and her 
 might for the principles that gave her birth and 
 happiness and the peace which she has treasured. 
 God helping her, she can do no other." 
 
 How many Americans caught the real signifi 
 cance of Wilson s thought with all its consequences 
 is doubtful. The country certainly looked upon 
 the war as a crusade. But there was in the national 
 emotion much that did not accord with the ideals 
 of Wilson. The people hated Germany for the 
 sinking of the Lusitania and all the other subma 
 rine outrages, for her crimes in Belgium, for the 
 plots and explosions in this country, for the Zim- 
 mermann note, and finally for her direct and insult 
 ing defiance of American rights. They recognized 
 that the Allies were fighting for civilization; they 
 sympathized with the democracies of Europe, of 
 which, since the Russian revolution of March, the 
 Allied camp was composed, and they wanted to 
 help them. They feared for America s safety in the 
 future, if Germany won the war. Most Americans 
 entered the struggle, therefore, with a sober glad 
 ness, based partly on emotional, partly on quixotic, 
 and partly on selfish grounds. But nearly all 
 
AMERICA DECIDES 115 
 
 fought rather to beat Germany than to secure a 
 new international order. Hence it was that after 
 Germany was beaten, Wilson was destined to dis 
 cover that his idealistic preaching had not fully 
 penetrated, and that he had failed to educate his 
 country, as completely as he believed, to the ideal 
 of a partnership of democratic and peace-loving 
 peoples as the essential condition of a new and 
 safe world. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE NATION IN ARMS 
 
 WHEN Congress declared that the United States 
 was in a state of war with Germany, on April 6, 
 1917, the public opinion of the country was unified 
 to a far greater extent than at the beginning of any 
 previous war. The extreme patience displayed by 
 President Wilson had its reward. When the year 
 opened the majority of citizens doubtless still 
 hoped that peace was possible. But German ac 
 tions in February and March had gone far towards 
 the education of the popular mind, and the final 
 speeches of the President crystallized conviction. 
 By April there were few Americans, except those 
 in whom pacifism was a mania, who were not con 
 vinced that war with Germany was the only course 
 consistent with either honor or safety. It is prob 
 able that many did not understand exactly the 
 ideals that actuated Wilson, but nine persons out 
 of ten believed it absolutely necessary to fight. 
 
 116 
 
THE NATION IN ARMS 117 
 
 But, however firmly united, the country was 
 completely unprepared for war in a military sense, 
 and must now pay the penalty for President Wil 
 son s opposition to adequate improvement of the 
 military system in 1915 and for the half-hearted 
 measures taken in 1916. Total military forces, 
 including regular army, national guard, and re 
 serves amounted to hardly three hundred thou 
 sand men and less than ten thousand officers. Even 
 the regular army was by no means ready for im 
 mediate participation in the sort of fighting de 
 manded by the European war; and, even if ade 
 quate troops were raised, the lack of trained officers 
 would create the most serious difficulties. No 
 wonder that the German General Staff ranked the 
 United States, from the military point of view, 
 somewhere between Belgium and Portugal. Fur 
 thermore, military experts had been discouraged by 
 the attitude of the Administration. The Secretary 
 of War, Newton D. Baker, had failed, either 
 through lack of administrative capacity or because 
 of pacifistic tendencies, to prepare his department 
 adequately. He had done nothing to rouse Con 
 gress or the nation from its attitude of indifference 
 towards preparation. By faith a pacifist, he had 
 been opposed to universal military service. An 
 
118 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 extreme liberal, he distrusted the professional mili 
 tary type and was to find it difficult to cooperate 
 with the captains of industry whose assistance was 
 essential. 
 
 Thus with a President and War Secretary, both 
 of whom had been instinctively opposed to a large 
 army and who had expressed their fear of the de 
 velopment of a militaristic spirit, and with a major 
 ity in Congress favoring the traditional volunteer 
 system, adherence to which had cost the British 
 thousands of lives that might better have been used 
 at home, the building of an effective army seemed 
 a matter of extreme doubt. Great credit must go 
 to both President Wilson and Secretary Baker for 
 sinking their natural instincts and seeking, as well 
 as following, the advice of the military experts, 
 who alone were capable of meeting the problems 
 that arose from a war for which the nation was 
 not prepared. 
 
 The President must face not only the special prob 
 lems caused by unreadiness, but also the general 
 difficulties which confront every American war- 
 President and which had tried nearly to the break 
 ing-point even the capacity of Lincoln. The Presi 
 dent of the United States in time of war is given the 
 supreme unified command of the army and navy 
 
THE NATION IN ARMS 119 
 
 But while the responsibility is his, actual con 
 trol often rests in the hands of others. Members 
 of Congress always take a keen interest in army 
 matters; many of them have been or are militia 
 men. They have always opposed a single army 
 which could be recruited, trained, and operated as 
 a unit, and approved the system of State militia 
 which makes for decentralization and gives to the 
 separate States large influence in the formation of 
 military policy. Even the President s control of the 
 Federal army, regulars and volunteers, is limited 
 by the decentralized organization of the different 
 army bureaus, which depend upon Congress for 
 their appropriations and which operate as almost 
 independent and frequently competing units. The 
 creation of a single programme for the army as a 
 whole is thus a task of extreme difficulty. 
 
 President Wilson, as historian, was well aware of 
 the tremendous price that had been paid in past 
 wars for such decentralization, accompanied as it 
 was, inevitably, by delays, misunderstandings, and 
 mistakes. He was determined to create a single 
 coordinating command, and his war policies were 
 governed from beginning to end by this purpose. 
 He set up no new machinery, but utilized as his 
 main instrument the General Staff, which had been 
 
120 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 created in 1903 as a result of the blunders and con 
 fusion that had been so painfully manifest in the 
 Spanish War. When the United States entered the 
 World War the General Staff had by no means 
 acquired the importance expected by those who 
 had created it. 1 But to it the President turned, 
 and it was this body enlarged in size and influence 
 that ultimately put into operation Wilson s policy 
 of centralization. It was in accordance with the 
 advice of the men who composed the General Staff 
 that the President elaborated the larger lines of the 
 military programme, and they were the men who 
 supervised the operation of details. 
 
 None of the processes which marked the transi 
 tion of the United States from a peace to a war 
 basis are comprehensible unless we remember that 
 the President was constantly working to over 
 come the forces of decentralization, and also that 
 the military programme was always on an emer 
 gency basis, shifting almost from week to week in 
 accordance with developments in Europe. 
 
 1 In April, 1917, the General Staff consisted of fifty-one officers, 
 only nineteen of whom were on duty in Washington. Of these, 
 eight were occupied with routine business, leaving but eleven free 
 for the real purpose for which the staff had been created "the 
 study of military problems, the preparation of plans for national 
 defense, and utilization of the military forces in time of war." 
 
THE NATION IN ARMS 121 
 
 The original programme did not provide for an ex 
 peditionary force in France. During the early days 
 of participation in the war it was generally be 
 lieved that the chief contributions of the United 
 States to Allied victory would not be directly upon 
 the fighting front. If the United States concen 
 trated its efforts upon financing the Allies, furnish 
 ing them with food, shipping, and the munitions 
 which had been promised so many persons argued 
 it would be doing far better than if it weakened 
 assistance of that sort by attempting to set up and 
 maintain a large fighting force of its own. The im 
 pression was unfortunately prevalent in civilian 
 circles that Germany was on her last legs, and that 
 the outcome of the war would be favorably settled 
 before the United States could put an effective 
 army in the field. Military experts, on the other 
 hand, more thoroughly convinced of German 
 strength, believed that the final campaigns could 
 not come before the summer of 1919, and did not 
 expect to provide a great expeditionary force pre 
 vious to the spring of that year if indeed it were 
 ever sent. Thus from opposite points of view the 
 amateur and the professional deprecated haste in 
 dispatching an army to France. From the mo 
 ment the United States entered the war, President 
 
WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Wilson certainly seems to have resolved upon the 
 preparation of an effective fighting force, if we may 
 judge from his insistence upon the selective draft, 
 although he did not expect that it would be used 
 abroad. But it may be asked whether he did not 
 hope for the arrangement of a negotiated peace, 
 which if not "without victory" would at least 
 leave Germany uncrushed. It is probable that 
 he did not yet perceive that "force to the ut 
 most" would be necessary before peace could be 
 secured; that realization was to come only in the 
 dark days of 1918. 
 
 A few weeks after America s declaration of war, 
 however, France and Great Britain dispatched 
 missions led by Balfour, Viviani, and Joffre, to re 
 quest earnestly that at least a small American force 
 be sent overseas at once for the moral effect upon 
 dispirited France. The plea determined the Presi 
 dent to send General Pershing immediately with a 
 force of about two thousand, who were followed in 
 June and July, 1917, by sufficient additional forces 
 to make up a division. Wilson had been authorized 
 by Congress, under the Selective Service Act, to 
 send four volunteer divisions abroad under the 
 command of Roosevelt. But he refused to inter 
 fere with the plans of the military experts, who 
 
THE NATION IN ARMS 123 
 
 strongly objected to any volunteer forces whatever. 
 Neither the valiant ex-President nor the prospec 
 tive volunteers were trained for the warfare of the 
 moment, and their presence in France would bring 
 no practical good to the Allied cause; moreover the 
 officers whom Roosevelt requested were sorely 
 needed in American training camps. 
 
 General Pershing, to whom was now entrusted 
 the military fortunes of the American army abroad, 
 was an officer fifty-seven years old, who had under 
 gone wide military and administrative experience 
 in Cuba and the Philippines; he had been given ex 
 traordinary promotion by President Roosevelt, 
 who had jumped him from the rank of captain to 
 that of Brigadier General; and he had been selected 
 to lead the punitive force dispatched in pursuit of 
 Villa in the spring of 1916. Distinguished in ap 
 pearance, with superb carriage, thin lips, and 
 squarely-chiselled chin, he possessed military gifts 
 of a sound rather than brilliant character. A strict 
 disciplinarian, he failed to win from his troops that 
 affection which the poilus gave to Petain, while he 
 never displayed the genius that compelled univer 
 sal admiration for Foch. Neither ultimate success 
 nor the stories of his dramatic remarks (as at the 
 grave of La Fayette: "La Fayette, we are here!") 
 
124 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 succeeded in investing him with the heroic halo 
 that ought to come to a victorious commander. 
 As time passes, however, Pershing takes higher 
 rank. His insistence upon soldierly qualities, his 
 unyielding determination to create American ar 
 mies under an independent command, his skill in 
 building up a great organization, his successful 
 operations at St. Mihiel and in the Meuse-Argonne 
 drive, despite faulty staff work all these facts be 
 come more plain as we acquire perspective. If his 
 torians refuse to recognize him as a great general, 
 they will surely describe his talents as more than 
 adequate to the exigencies of the military situation. 
 The sending of the Pershing expedition did not at 
 once alter fundamentally the original programme 
 for raising an army of about a million men to be kept 
 in the United States, as a reserve in case of emer 
 gency. There was no intention of sending to France 
 more troops than would be needed to keep filled the 
 ranks of the small expeditionary force. But the 
 urgent representations of the Allies and reports 
 from American officers induced a radical change in 
 policy. The latter emphasized the unsound mili 
 tary position of our Allies and insisted that the 
 deadlock could be broken and the war won only by 
 putting a really effective American army beside the 
 
THE NATION IN ARMS 125 
 
 French and British by the summer of 1918. A pro 
 gramme was drawn up in France and sent to the War 
 Department, according to which an army of thirty 
 divisions should be sent abroad before the end of 
 that year. Throughout 1917 this plan remained 
 rather a hope than a definite programme and it was 
 not until early in 1918 that it was officially ap 
 proved. It was thus of an emergency character and 
 this fact combined with the indefiniteness preva 
 lent during the autumn of 1917 to produce extreme 
 confusion. In July, 1918, an eighty-division pro 
 gramme was adopted and more confusion resulted. 
 Furthermore the entire problem was complicated 
 by the question as to whether or not ships could be 
 found for transportation. It had been assumed 
 that it would take six months to transport five hun 
 dred thousand troops. But in May, 1918, and 
 thereafter nearly three hundred thousand troops a 
 month w^ere carried to France, largely through ton 
 nage obtained from the British. Such a develop 
 ment of transportation facilities was not and could 
 not be foreseen. It increased the confusion. In the 
 face of such difficulties, the problems of man 
 power, training, and supplies had to be met and ul 
 timately solved, largely through the centralization 
 carried into effect by the General Staff. 
 
126 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 The problem of man-power had been carefully 
 considered during the weeks that preceded our en 
 trance into the war and the declaration of war 
 found the Government prepared with a plan for 
 a selective draft. On the 7th of April, the day 
 after the declaration of war, President Wilson in 
 sisted that "the safety of the nation depended upon 
 the measure." 
 
 Congress, however, was slow to accept the prin 
 ciple of conscription, and the President encoun 
 tered fierce opposition on the part of the advocates 
 of the volunteer system, who were led by men of 
 such influence as Speaker Champ Clark, House 
 Leader Claude Kitchin, and the chairman of the 
 House Committee on Military Affairs, Stanley H. 
 Dent. The President was inflexible, declaring that 
 the Administration would not "yield an inch of 
 any essential parts of the programme for raising an 
 army by conscription," and exercised his personal 
 influence to its fullest extent in order to secure a 
 favorable vote. He was ably seconded by Julius 
 Kahn, the ranking Republican member of the 
 House Military Committee, who was himself born 
 in Germany. The failure of House and Senate to 
 agree on the matter of age liability delayed action 
 for some weeks. Finally, on May 18, 1917, what 
 
THE NATION IN ARMS 127 
 
 is popularly known as the Selective Service Act 
 became law. 
 
 This Act gave to the President power to raise the 
 regular army by enlistment to 287,000 men, to take 
 into the Federal service all members of the national 
 guard, and to raise by selective draft, in two install 
 ments, a force of a million troops. All men between 
 the ages of twenty-one and thirty, both inclu 
 sive, were registered on the 5th of June; this with 
 the subsequent registration of men coming of age 
 later, produced an available body of more than ten 
 millions. And when in the following year, the draft 
 age was extended to include all men between the 
 ages of eighteen and forty-five, both inclusive, thir 
 teen millions more were added. From this body the 
 names of those who were to serve were drawn by lot. 
 All men registered were carefully classified, in order 
 that the first chosen might be those not merely best 
 fitted for fighting, but those whose absence on the 
 firing line would least disturb the essential econom 
 ic life of the nation. Liberal exemptions were ac 
 corded, including artisans employed in industries 
 necessary to war production and men upon whom 
 others were dependent. On the 20th of July the 
 first drawings were made, and by the end of the 
 year about half a million of the drafted men, now 
 
128 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 called the National Army, were mustered in. In 
 the meantime enlistments in the regular army and 
 the national guard had raised the total number of 
 troops to about a million and a quarter and of 
 officers to more than one hundred thousand. Less 
 than a year later, when the armistice was signed, 
 the army included over three and a half millions, 
 of whom nearly two millions were in France. 
 
 The real military contribution of the United 
 States to allied victory lay in man-power. It 
 could not of its own resources transport the 
 troops nor equip them completely, but the raising 
 of an enormous number of fresh forces, partially 
 trained, it is true, but of excellent fighting cali 
 ber, made possible the maneuvers of Foch that 
 brought disaster to German arms. When once 
 these armies arrived in numbers on the battle-line 
 in France, the realization of the inexhaustible 
 man-power of America did more than anything 
 else to revive the spirit of the Allies and discourage 
 the enemy. 
 
 Infinitely more difficult than the problem of 
 man-power were those of training and supplies. As 
 we have seen, these problems were complicated by 
 the decision to send abroad an effective fighting 
 force, a decision which completely changed the 
 
THE NATION IN ARMS 129 
 
 entire military situation. The original plan of 
 maintaining an army only in the United States, as a 
 reserve, permitted the questions of camps, supplies, 
 equipment, munitions, and training to be under 
 taken at comparative leisure. But if a large army 
 was to be placed in France by 1918, these problems 
 must be solved immediately and upon an emergency 
 basis. Hence resulted the confusion and expense 
 which nearly led to the breakdown of the whole 
 programme in the winter of 1917-18. The War 
 Department faced a dilemma. If it waited until 
 supplies were ready, the period of training would 
 be too short. On the other hand, if it threw the 
 new draft armies immediately into the camps, 
 assuming that the camps could be prepared, the 
 troops would lack the wool uniforms and blankets 
 necessary for protection, as well as the equipment 
 with which to drill. The second alternative ap 
 peared the less dangerous, and in September the 
 first draft calls were made and by December the 
 camps were filled. f 
 
 x The size of the army raised in 1917 demanded the braiding of 
 enormous cantonments. Within three months of the first draw 
 ings sixteen complete cities of barracks had sprung up, each to 
 accommodate 40,000 inhabitants. They had then* officers quar 
 ters, hospitals, sewage systems, filter plants, and garbage incinera 
 tors, electric lighting plants, libraries, theaters. By the 4th of 
 September the National Army cantonments were ready for 
 
130 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Many apprehensions were fulfilled in fact, when 
 the terrible winter weather came, the worst in 
 years. The northern camps faced it with insufficient 
 clothing. Pneumonia made its invasion. Artil 
 lerymen were trained with wooden guns; infantry 
 men with wooden rifles or antiquated Krags. But 
 all the time the essential training proceeded and the 
 calls for replacements sent by General Pershing in 
 France were met. 
 
 The first and vital need was for officers to train 
 the willing but inexperienced recruits. To meet 
 this need a series of officers training camps had 
 been established in the spring of 1917 and con 
 tinued for a year. Each camp lasted for three 
 months, where during twelve hours a day the can 
 didates for commissions, chiefly college graduates 
 
 430,000 men, two-thirds of the first draft. A single camp involved 
 the expenditure of approximately $11,000,000. Camp Grant, at 
 Rockford, Illinois, included 1600 buildings with space for 45,000 
 men and 12,000 horses. The water, which before use was tested 
 and filtered, was supplied from six huge wells drilled 175 feet 
 deep, carried through 38 miles of water main, and stored in reser 
 voir tanks holding 550,000 gallons. For lighting purposes there 
 were 1450 miles of electric wire, 1200 poles, 35,000 incandescent 
 lamps. During the period of construction, 50 carloads of building 
 material were daily unloaded, and for several weeks an average 
 of 500,000 board feet of lumber set up daily. The entire construc 
 tion of the camp demanded 50,000,000 feet of lumber, 700 tons 
 of nails, 4,000,000 feet of roofing, and 3,000,000 square feet of 
 wall board. 
 
THE NATION IN ARMS 131 
 
 and young business men, were put through the 
 most intensive drill and withering study. All told, 
 more than eighty thousand commissions were 
 granted through the camps, and the story of the 
 battlefields proved at once the caliber of these ama 
 teur officers and the effectiveness of their training. 
 Special camps, such as the school of fire at Fort 
 Sill, carried the officers a step further, and when 
 they went overseas they received in schools in 
 France instruction in the latest experience of the 
 AJlied armies. The colleges of the country were also 
 formed into training schools and ultimately about 
 170,000 young men, under military age, in five hun 
 dred institutions of learning, joined the Students* 
 Army Training Corps. 
 
 In all the army schools French and British offi 
 cers cooperated as instructors and gave the value 
 of their three years experience on the fighting 
 front. But the traditions of the American regular 
 army, formulated in the Indian and frontier fights, 
 rather than the siege methods of the trenches, 
 formed the basic principles of the instruction; Gen 
 eral Pershing was insistent that an offensive spirit 
 must be instilled into the new troops, a policy 
 which received the enthusiastic endorsement of 
 the President. The development of "a self-reliant 
 
132 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 infantry by thorough drill in the use of a rifle and in 
 the tactics of open warfare" was always uppermost 
 in the mind of the commander of the expeditionary 
 force, who from first to last refused to approve the 
 extreme specialization in trench warfare that was 
 advised by the British and the French. 
 
 The emergency nature of the military programme, 
 resulting from the sudden decision to send a large 
 army to France, the decentralization of army af 
 fairs, and the failure to prepare adequately in the 
 years preceding entrance into the war all these 
 factors made a shortage of supplies in the training 
 camps inevitable. 
 
 The first appropriation bill which was to provide 
 the funds to purchase clothing, blankets, and other 
 necessities was not passed until the 15th of June, 
 leaving a pitifully brief space of time for the placing 
 of contracts and the manufacture and transport of 
 supplies. Many factories had to be built, and 
 many delays resulted from the expansion of the 
 Quartermaster Department, which had not been 
 manned or equipped for such an emergency. The 
 shortage of clothing was felt the more because of 
 the extreme severity of the winter. After the in 
 itial difficulties had been passed supplies of this kind 
 were furnished in profusion; but lack of preparation 
 
THE NATION IN ARMS 13S 
 
 on the part of the War Department and the 
 slowness of Congress to appropriate promptly 
 produced a temporary situation of extreme dis 
 comfort and worse. The provision of food supplies 
 was arranged more successfully. Soldiers would 
 not be soldiers if they did not complain of their 
 "chow." But the quality and variety of the food 
 given to the new troops reached a higher degree 
 than was reasonably to have been expected. The 
 average soldier gained from ten to twelve pounds 
 after entering the service. Provision was also made 
 for his entertainment. Vaudeville, concerts, mov 
 ing pictures formed an element of camp life, much 
 to the surprise of the visiting French officers and 
 Civil War veterans. 
 
 Americans naturally look back with pride to the 
 making of their new army. The draft was accom 
 plished smoothly and rapidly. Demonstrations 
 against conscription, which in view of the Civil 
 War draft riots had caused some apprehension, 
 were almost unheard of and never serious. Of the 
 three million called for service on the first draft, all 
 but 150,000 were accounted for, and of those miss 
 ing most were aliens who had left to enlist in their 
 own armies. The problem of the slacker and of the 
 conscientious objector, although vexatious, was 
 
134 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 never serious. The educative effect of the training 
 upon the country was very considerable. All ranks 
 and classes were gathered in, representing at least 
 fifty-six different nationalities; artisans, million 
 aires, and hoboes bunked side by side; the youthful 
 plutocrat saw life from a new angle, the wild moun 
 taineer learned to read, the alien immigrant to 
 speak English. Finally the purpose of the training 
 was achieved, for America sent over a force that 
 could fight successfully at the moment of crisis. 
 
 Amateur critics had assumed that the problem of 
 raising an effective number of troops would prove 
 far more difficult than that of producing the neces 
 sary equipment and munitions. It was generally 
 believed that the industrial genius of America was 
 such that American factories could provide all the 
 artillery, small-arms, and aircraft that the armies 
 could use. The most fantastic prophecies were in 
 dulged in. Experience showed, however, that it is 
 easier to raise, train, and organize troops of supe 
 rior sort in a brief period than it is to arm them. It 
 stands as a matter of record that foreign artillery 
 and machine guns alone made possible the attack 
 on the St. Mihiel salient and the advance in the Ar- 
 gonne. As for military airplanes, had the Govern 
 ment relied upon those of American manufacture 
 
THE NATION IN ARMS 135 
 
 there would have been no American squadrons fly 
 ing over the German lines previous to August, 
 1918, and not many between then and the signing 
 of the armistice. 
 
 Such a statement should not imply blanket criti 
 cism of the Ordnance Department. The Govern 
 ment was perhaps slow, even after the United 
 States entered the war, to realize the serious char 
 acter of the military situation abroad and to ap 
 preciate the extent to which American aid would be 
 necessary to allied victory. Hence the changes in 
 the military programme which inevitably created 
 confusion. But the decision to ensure against un 
 foreseen disaster by preparing heavily for 1919 and 
 1920 and partially disregarding 19 18 was based upon 
 sound strategical reasoning. The war was brought 
 to a close sooner than had been expected ; hence the 
 period of actual hostilities was devoted to laying 
 down the foundations of a munitions industry, and 
 the munitions actually produced, in the words of 
 Assistant Secretary Crowell, "might almost be 
 termed casual to the main enterprise, pilots of the 
 quantities to come." Such a policy was possible 
 because of the surplus production of the Allies. 
 The latter stated that their production of artil 
 lery was such that they could equip all American 
 
136 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 divisions as they arrived in France during the year 
 1918. 1 This gave time "to build manufacturing 
 capacity on a grand scale without the necessity of 
 immediate production, time to secure the best in 
 design, time to attain quality in the enormous out 
 puts to come later as opposed to early quantities of 
 indifferent class." 
 
 The lack of preparation in the matter of machine 
 guns has received wide publicity. In this, as in ar 
 tillery, the deficiency was made good by the Allies 
 up to the final weeks of the war. In April, 1917, 
 the army possessed only a small number of machine 
 guns entirely inadequate even for the training of 
 the new troops and half of which would not take 
 American service cartridges. Less than seven hun 
 dred machine rifles were on hand. Manufacturing 
 facilities for machine guns were limited; there were 
 only two factories in the United States actually 
 producing in quantity. Orders for four thousand 
 
 1 As a result of the agreement thus made the United States 
 shipped overseas between the time of the declaration of war and 
 the signing of the armistice only 815 complete pieces of mobile 
 artillery, including all produced for France and Great Britain as 
 well as for American troops. Of the 75 s only 181 complete units 
 were shipped abroad, the American Expeditionary Force securing 
 1828 from the French. Of the 155 millimeter howitzers none of 
 American manufacture reached the front. French deliveries 
 amounted to 747. America s Munitions, 1917-1918 (Report of 
 Benedict Crowell, Assistant Secretary of War), p. 90. 
 
THE NATION IN ARMS 137 
 
 Vickers had been placed the preceding December, 
 but deliveries had not been made by the beginning 
 of April. Either because of jealousy in the depart 
 ment, or because of justifiable technical reasons, 
 various experts demanded a better machine gun 
 than any used by the Allies, and Secretary Baker 
 took the responsibility of delaying matters so as to 
 hold the competition recommended by a board of 
 investigation. This competition was planned for 
 May 1, 1917, with the result that we entered the 
 war without having decided upon any type of ma 
 chine gun, and it was not until some weeks later 
 that the Browning was approved. 
 
 First deliveries of this gun could not be made un 
 til April, 1918, a year after the declaration of war. 
 In the meantime, the War Department utilized ex 
 isting facilities to the limit, and placed large orders 
 for Colt, Lewis, and Vickers machine guns. But 
 the heavy machine guns and automatic rifles used 
 by our troops in the field were furnished by the 
 French and the British until May, 1918. During 
 that month and June the eleven American divisions 
 that sailed were provided with American-made 
 Vickers, although they still used the French-made 
 Chauchat automatic rifles. After June, all Amer 
 ican troops to sail received a full equipment of 
 
138 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Brownings, both heavy machine guns and auto 
 matic rifles. Altogether 27,000 heavy Brownings 
 and 29,000 light Brownings were shipped to the 
 American Expeditionary Force, sufficient by the 
 time of the armistice to equip completely all the 
 American troops in France. They were not used 
 in combat until the Meuse-Argonne battle, where 
 they amply justified the faith of General Pershing. 
 The policy of delaying production in order to ob 
 tain the best quality was not followed in the case 
 of the rifle, and the results unquestionably justi 
 fied the plan, ultimately adopted, of accepting a 
 slightly inferior type which could be produced at 
 once in quantity. The American army rifle, the 
 Springfield, was generally regarded as the most ac 
 curate the world had seen. Unfortunately there 
 was little hope of expanding the production of 
 Springfields sufficiently to meet the necessities of 
 the new National Army. For several years pre 
 vious to 1917 the Government, with myopic vision, 
 had cut down expenditures for the manufacture of 
 small-arms and ammunition, with the result that 
 artisans skilled in making Springfields had been 
 scattered. Even if the two factories that had been 
 turning out Springfields could be restaffed, their 
 combined production would be insufficient. Private 
 
THE NATION IN ARMS 139 
 
 plants could not be utilized for early quantity 
 production, because of the time that would be 
 taken in building up an adequate manufacturing 
 equipment and training the artisans. Fortune 
 intervened. It happened that three large Amer 
 ican firms were about to complete important con 
 tracts for supplying Enfield rifles to the British 
 Government. Their plants and skilled labor might 
 be turned to account, but the Enfield was not re 
 garded as satisfactory, principally because its am 
 munition was inferior to that taken by the Spring 
 field. The War Department decided to attempt a 
 change in the bore of the Enfield so that it would 
 use Springfield cartridges, and to make other minor 
 simplifications and improvements. The experi 
 ment proved successful to the highest degree. The 
 modified Enfields were reported to be only slightly 
 inferior to the Springfields and by the end of De 
 cember, 1917, five thousand a day were being 
 turned out. Altogether American manufactories 
 produced during the war about two and a half mil 
 lion rifles, of which all but three hundred thousand 
 were modified Enfields. 
 
 In the matter of airplane production the record 
 is far less satisfactory. It is, perhaps, too early to 
 distribute with justice the blame for the delays in 
 
140 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 production, and full cognizance should be taken of 
 the difficulties which had to be overcome. But 
 whatever explanations are to be found, it is an un 
 deniable fact that not until August, 1918, three 
 months before the armistice, was an American 
 squadron equipped with American planes. The 
 Allies had looked to America for the production of 
 combat planes in quantity and Congress, respond 
 ing to popular enthusiasm, had in the first days of 
 the war appropriated more than half a billion dol 
 lars for their manufacture. An Aircraft Production 
 Board was organized, with Howard E. Coffin as 
 chairman, although the actual manufacture of the 
 machines was under the supervision of the Signal 
 Corps. Promises were made that by the spring of 
 1918 the Germans would be completely at the 
 mercy of American airmen. 
 
 But difficulties developed. A new type of motor 
 had to be produced, capable of serving in any kind 
 of airplane; this was rapidly and successfully ac 
 complished, and in July, 1917, the Liberty Motor 
 was approved. But just as manufacturing was 
 about to begin changes in the design were de 
 manded, with ensuing delays. There was confu 
 sion between the jurisdiction of the Aircraft Board 
 and that of the Signal Corps. The organization of 
 
THE NATION IN ARMS 141 
 
 the latter was less efficient than had been expected, 
 and men who knew little or nothing of the tech 
 nique of aircraft were placed in charge of produc 
 tion. When orders were given for planes to be 
 constructed in France, seven thousand American 
 machinists had to be sent over to release the French 
 machinists who were to work on these contracts, 
 with consequent delays to American production. 
 Repeated alterations in the designs of airplanes 
 must be made to meet changing requirements sent 
 from the front, and large numbers of planes almost 
 ready for delivery had to be scrapped. Two of the 
 types manufactured proved to be unsatisfactory 
 and were condemned, with an estimated loss of 
 twenty-six million dollars. Finally the bitter cold 
 of the winter made it difficult to secure the indis 
 pensable spruce from the northwestern forests, and 
 lumbering operations were hampered by extensive 
 strikes, which were said to have resulted from 
 German intrigues. 
 
 General disappointment at the failure to produce 
 airplanes in quantity by the spring of 1918 was the 
 more bitter because of the high hopes that had been 
 aroused by those in authority. Instead of confess 
 ing the serious nature of the delays, the War 
 Department attempted to conceal not merely the 
 
142 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 mistakes made but the fact that airplanes could 
 not possibly reach France in any numbers before the 
 autumn of 1918. Thus when at last, in February, 
 a single combat plane was completed and shipped, 
 the War Department issued the statement: "The 
 first American-built battle planes are to-day en 
 route to France. This first shipment, although not 
 in itself large, marks the final overcoming of many 
 difficulties met in building up a new and intricate 
 industry." When General Wood returned from 
 France in March and reported that not one Amer 
 ican-built plane was in action there, and when the 
 Senate investigation committee unearthed the ex 
 istence of all the delays, the disillusioned public 
 gave vent to fierce criticism. It was to some extent 
 calmed by the appointment, in April, of John D. 
 Ryan, of the Anaconda Copper Company, as di 
 rector of aircraft production for the army. By this 
 time many of the most serious difficulties had been 
 passed. When the armistice was signed about twelve 
 thousand airplanes had been produced by American 
 plants, of which a third were service-planes. x 
 
 It is impossible here to trace the activities of the 
 various departments in the herculean task of arm 
 ing the nation. But one should not forget that 
 
 1 Ayres, The War with Germany, 87-90. 
 
THE NATION IN ARMS 143 
 
 there was much which never received wide pub 
 licity. The development of ordnance carried with 
 it the manufacture of quantities of ammunition 
 hitherto undreamt of, the building of railway and 
 motorized artillery, the improvement of sight and 
 fire-control apparatus, the making of all sorts of 
 trench-warfare materiel. The Air Service had to 
 concern itself with the manufacture of radio tele 
 phones, armament for airplanes, the synchronizing 
 of machine guns to fire through propeller blades, 
 airplane bombs, air photography, and pyrotechnics. 
 The Chemical Warfare Service was busy with the 
 making of toxic gases and gas defense equipment, 
 using the peach stones and cocoanut shells which 
 every one was asked to save. The enormous quan 
 tities of medical and dental supplies must be gath 
 ered by the Quartermaster Department, which also 
 had charge of the salvage service and the thousand 
 gargantuan household occupations, such as launder 
 ing and incineration of garbage, that went with the 
 maintenance of the army in camp. The Signal 
 Corps must produce wire, telegraphs, telephones, 
 switchboards, radio equipment, batteries, field 
 glasses, photographic outfits, and carrier pigeons. 
 
 Upon its navy the United States has always re 
 lied chiefly for defense and in this branch of the 
 
144 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 service the country was better prepared for war in 
 1917 than in the army. Indeed when the nation 
 entered the struggle many persons believed that 
 the sole practical fighting assistance the United 
 States should give the Allies would be upon the sea. 
 Josephus Daniels, the Secretary of the Navy, was 
 a Southern politician, of limited administrative ex 
 perience and capacity. During the first years of 
 his appointment he had alienated navy officers 
 through the introduction of pet reforms and his 
 frank advocacy of a little navy. Resiliency, how 
 ever, was one of his characteristics and he followed 
 President Wilson in 1916, when the latter demand 
 ed from Congress authority for an expansion in the 
 navy which seemed only prudent in view of in 
 ternational conditions. Largely owing to the ef 
 forts of the Assistant Secretary, Franklin D. Roose 
 velt, the months immediately preceding the dec 
 laration of war witnessed strenuous preparations 
 to render aid to the Allies in case the United 
 States should participate. Thereafter Secretary 
 Daniels tended to sink his personality and judg 
 ment in the conduct of the naval war and to defer 
 to the opinion of various officers, of whom Admiral 
 William S. Benson, Chief of Naval Operations, 
 was the most influential. When war was declared 
 
THE NATION IN ARMS 145 
 
 two flotillas of destroyers were at once sent to 
 Queenstown to assist in chasing and sinking sub 
 marines, and were placed under the command of 
 Admiral William S. Sims. Battleships and cruisers 
 followed, though by no means with the expedition 
 nor in the numbers desired by Sims, who believed 
 that by using practically the entire naval force at 
 once the submarine could be exterminated and the 
 war ended. 
 
 At home, the Navy Department entered upon a 
 process of expansion which increased its personnel 
 from 65,000 to 497,000 when the armistice was 
 signed. A rapid development in naval construc 
 tion was planned, with emphasis upon destroyers. 
 The effects of this programme became visible with 
 in a year; during the first nine months of 1918 no 
 less than eighty-three destroyers were launched, as 
 against sixty-two for the preceding nine years. 
 Submarine chasers of a special design were built 
 and many private yachts taken over and adapted 
 to the war against the submarine. During the 
 course of the war two battleships and twenty-eight 
 submarines were completed. Expansion in naval 
 shipbuilding plans was paralleled by the construc 
 tion of giant docks; by camps sufficient for the 
 training of two hundred thousand men; and by a 
 
146 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 naval aircraft factory from which a seaplane was 
 turned out seven months after work on the factory 
 was begun. Naval aviators returning from the 
 Channel coasts superintended flying schools and 
 undertook the patrol of our Atlantic seaboard. 
 
 If much of these military preparations was not 
 translated into accomplishment before the war 
 ended, it was because the United States was pre 
 paring wisely for a long struggle and it seemed 
 necessary that the foundations should be broad and 
 deep. "America was straining her energies to 
 wards a goal," said the Director of Munitions, "to 
 ward the realization of an ambition which, in the 
 production of munitions, dropped the year 1918 
 almost out of consideration altogether, which in 
 deed did not bring the full weight of American 
 men and materiel into the struggle even in 1919, 
 but which left it for 1920, if the enemy had not yet 
 succumbed to the growing American power, to wit 
 ness the maximum strength of the United States 
 in the field." It was the knowledge of this prepa 
 ration which, to some extent, helped to convince 
 the German General Staff of the futility of fur 
 ther resistance and thus to bring the war to an 
 early end. 
 
 The dependence of the United States upon the 
 
THE NATION IN ARMS 147 
 
 Allies for equipment and munitions does not de 
 serve the vitriolic anathemas of certain critics. 
 The country did not enter the struggle as if it ex 
 pected to fight the war single-handed. Distribu 
 tion of labor and supplies between the United 
 States and the Allies was merely a wise and eco 
 nomic measure. At their own request, the Allies 
 were furnished with that which they most needed 
 money, food, and man-power. In return they 
 provided the United States with the artillery and 
 machine guns which they could spare and which 
 they could manufacture more cheaply and rapidly. 
 Finally there is the outstanding fact, of which 
 America may always be proud, that this heteroge 
 neous democracy, organized, so far as organization 
 existed, for the pursuits of peace, was able in the 
 space of sixteen months, to provide an army capa 
 ble of fighting successfully one of the most difficult 
 campaigns of the war, and that which led directly 
 to the military defeat of Germany. 
 
 The ultimate success of President Wilson s war 
 policies could hardly have been achieved except by 
 the process of centralization which he never lost 
 from view. His insistence upon centralized re 
 sponsibility and control in political matters was 
 paralleled in the military field. Nothing illustrates 
 
148 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 this principle better than the centralization of the 
 American Expeditionary Force under the absolute 
 and unquestioned command of General Pershing. 
 The latter was given free rein. The jealousies 
 which so weakened the Union armies during the 
 first years of the Civil War were ruthlessly re 
 pressed. No generals were sent to France of whom 
 he did not approve. When the Allies threatened 
 to appeal to Washington over Pershing s head, 
 President Wilson turned a deaf ear. 
 
 In the United States, the President sought sim 
 ilar centralization through the General Staff. It 
 was this body which prepared the different plans for 
 the Draft Act, the Pershing expedition, and finally 
 for the gigantic task of putting a million men in 
 France by the summer of 1918. To the staff was 
 given the formulation of the training programme 
 along the lines recommended by Pershing. Al 
 ways, however, it was hampered by the multiple 
 responsibility that characterized the old-style army 
 machine with its bureau chiefs competing with each 
 other, with the navy, and with the Allies. Quar 
 termaster Department, Ordnance Department, 
 Signal Corps, and the other bureaus were uncoor 
 dinated, and inevitable waste and inefficiency fol 
 lowed all their operations. It was the crisis that 
 
THE NATION IN ARMS 149 
 
 arose from the problem of supplies, in the winter of 
 1917, that furnished the President with the oppor 
 tunity to cut red-tape and secure the centraliza 
 tion he desired. That opportunity came with the 
 blanket powers bestowed upon him by the Over 
 man Act, the full significance of which can only 
 be appreciated after a consideration of the meas 
 ures taken to centralize the industrial resources of 
 the nation. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE HOME FRONT 
 
 ON May 18, 1917, President Wilson issued a proc 
 lamation in which are to be found the following 
 significant sentences : 
 
 In the sense in which we have been wont to think of 
 armies there are no armies in this struggle, there are 
 entire nations armed. Thus, the men who remain to 
 till the soil and man the factories are no less a part of 
 the army that is in France than the men beneath the 
 battle flags. It must be so with us. It is not an army 
 that we must shape and train for war it is a Nation. 
 To this end our people must draw close in one compact 
 front against a common foe. But this cannot be if each 
 man pursues a private purpose. All must pursue one 
 purpose. The Nation needs all men, but it needs each 
 man, not in the field that will most pleasure him, but 
 in the endeavor that will best serve the common good. 
 Thus, though a sharpshooter pleases to operate a trip 
 hammer for the forging of great guns, and an expert 
 machinist desires to march with the flag, the Nation 
 is being served only when the sharpshooter marches 
 and the machinist remains at his levers. The whole 
 
 150 
 
THE HOME FRONT 151 
 
 Nation must be a team, in which each man shall play 
 the part for which he is best fitted. 
 
 If President Wilson deserves severe criticism for 
 his failure to endorse adequate plans of preparation 
 for war while his country was at peace, he should be 
 given due credit for his appreciation that the home 
 front must be organized if the fighting front was to 
 be victorious. He perceived clearly that it was 
 necessary to carry into the industrial life of the na 
 tion that centralizing process which characterized 
 his military policy. That the nation at home was 
 made to feel itself part of the fighting forces and co 
 operated enthusiastically and effectively in the or 
 ganization of the national resources was not the 
 least of the triumphs of the United States. Such 
 organization demanded great sacrifice, not merely 
 of luxuries or comforts, but of settled habits, which 
 are difficult to break. It must necessarily be of an 
 emergency character, for the United States pos 
 sessed no bureaucratic system like that which ob 
 tains on the continent of Europe for the centraliza 
 tion of trade, manufactures, food production, and 
 the thousand activities that form part of economic 
 life. But the event proved that both the spirit and 
 the brains of the American people were equal to 
 the crisis. 
 
152 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 The problem of coordinating the national indus 
 tries for the supply of the army was complicated by 
 the military decentralization described in the pre 
 ceding chapter, which President Wilson was not 
 able to remedy before the final months of the war. 
 The army did not form or state its requirements as 
 one body but through five supply bureaus, which 
 acted independently and in competition with each 
 other. Bids for materials from the different bu 
 reaus conflicted with each other, with those of the 
 navy, and of the Allies. Not merely was it essen 
 tial that such demands should be coordinated, but 
 that some central committee should be able to say 
 how large was the total supply of any sort of mate 
 rials, how soon they could be produced, and to pre 
 vent the waste of such materials in unessential pro 
 duction. If the army was decentralized, American 
 industry as a whole was in a state of complete 
 chaos, so far as any central organization was con 
 cerned. On the side of business every firm in every 
 line of production was competing in the manufac 
 ture of essential and unessential articles, in trans 
 portation, and in bidding for and holding the neces 
 sary labor. Mr. Wilson set himself the task of 
 evolving order out of this chaos. 
 
 The President, as in the purely military problem 
 
THE HOME FRONT 153 
 
 where he utilized the General Staff as his instru 
 ment, prepared to adapt existing machinery, rather 
 than to create a completely new organization. For 
 a time he seems to have believed that his Cabinet 
 might serve the function. But it was ill-adapted to 
 handle the sort of problems that must be solved. 
 It was composed of men chosen largely for political 
 reasons, and despite much public complaint it had 
 not been strengthened after Wilson s reelection. 
 Franklin K. Lane, the Secretary of the Interior, 
 was generally recognized as a man of excellent busi 
 ness judgment, willing to listen to experts, and ca 
 pable of cooperating effectively with the economic 
 leaders of the country. His influence with the 
 President, however, seemed to be overshadowed by 
 that of Newton D. Baker and William G. McAdoo, 
 Secretaries of War and of the Treasury, who had 
 inspired the distrust of most business men. Mc 
 Adoo in particular alienated financial circles be 
 cause of his apparent suspicion of banking inter 
 est, and both, by their appeals to laboring men, 
 laid themselves open to the charge of demagogic 
 tactics. Robert Lansing, the Secretary of State, 
 had won recognition as an expert international 
 lawyer of long experience, but he could not be ex . 
 pected to exercise great influence, inasmuch as the 
 
154 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 President obviously intended to remain his own 
 foreign secretary. Albert S. Burleson, Postmaster- 
 General, was a politician, expert in the minor tac 
 tics of party, whose conduct of the postal and tele 
 graphic systems was destined to bring a storm of 
 protest upon the entire Administration. Thomas 
 W. Gregory, the Attorney-General, had gained en 
 trance into the Cabinet by means of a railroad suit 
 which had roused the ire of the transportation in 
 terests. The other members were, at that time, 
 little known or spoken of. Wilson spent much time 
 and effort in defending his Cabinet members from 
 attacks, and yet it was believed that he rarely ap 
 pealed to them for advice in the formulation of 
 policies. Thus the Cabinet as a whole lacked the 
 very qualities essential to a successful organizing 
 committee: ability to secure the cooperation and 
 respect of the industrial leaders of the country. 
 
 Titular functions of an organizing character, 
 nevertheless, had been conferred upon six members 
 of the Cabinet in August, 1916, through the crea 
 tion of a " Council of National Defense"; they were 
 charged with the "coordination of industries and 
 resources for the national security and welfare." 
 The actual labor of coordination, however, was to 
 be exercised by an advisory commission of seven, 
 
THE HOME FRONT 155 
 
 which included Howard E. Coffin, in charge of 
 munitions, Daniel Willard, president of the Balti 
 more and Ohio Railroad, in charge of transporta 
 tion, Julius Rosenwald, president of the Sears- 
 Roebuck Company, in charge of supplies including 
 clothing, Bernard M. Baruch, a versatile financial 
 trader, in charge of metals, minerals, and raw ma 
 terials, Samuel Gompers, president of the American 
 Federation of Labor, in charge of labor and the 
 welfare of workers, Hollis Godfrey in charge of en 
 gineering and education, and Franklin H. Martin 
 in charge of medicine. The commission at once 
 prepared to lay down its programme, to create sub 
 committees and technical boards, and to secure the 
 assistance of business leaders, without whose 
 cooperation their task could not be fulfilled. 
 
 Following plans developed by the Council of 
 National Defense, experts in every business likely 
 to prove of importance were called upon to coordi 
 nate and stimulate war necessities, to control their 
 distribution, to provide for the settlement of dis 
 putes between employers and wage-earners, to fix 
 prices, to conserve resources. Scientific and tech 
 nical experts were directed in their researches. The 
 General Medical Board and the Committee on En 
 gineering and Education were supervised in their 
 
156 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 mobilization of doctors and surgeons, engineers, 
 physicists and chemists, professors and graduate 
 students in the university laboratories. Every 
 where and in all lines experience and brains were 
 sought and utilized. State Councils of Defense 
 were created to oversee the work of smaller units 
 and to establish an effective means of communica 
 tion between the individual and the national Gov 
 ernment. Naturally much over-organization re 
 sulted and some waste of time and energy; but the 
 universal spirit of voluntary cooperation evoked 
 by the Councils overbalanced this loss and aided 
 greatly in putting the country on an effective war 
 basis. As Wilson said, "beyond all question the 
 highest and best form of efficiency is the sponta 
 neous cooperation of a free people." In return for 
 their efforts the people received an education in 
 public spirit and civic consciousness such as could 
 have come in no other way. 
 
 Of the committees of the Council, that on muni 
 tions developed along the most elaborate lines, be 
 coming of such importance that on July 28, 1917, 
 it was reorganized as the War Industries Board. 
 As such it gradually absorbed most of the functions 
 of the Council which were not transferred to other 
 agencies of the Government. During the autumn 
 
THE HOME FRONT 157 
 
 of 1917 the activities of the Board underwent rapid 
 extension, but it lacked the power to enforce its 
 decisions. As in the case of the General Staff, it 
 was important that it should have authority not 
 merely to plan but also to supervise and execute. 
 Such a development was foreshadowed in the re 
 organization of the Board in March, 1918, under 
 the chairmanship of Bernard M. Baruch, and when 
 the President received the blanket authority con 
 ferred by the Overman Act, he immediately in 
 vested the War Industries Board with the central 
 izing power which seemed so necessary. Hence 
 forth it exercised an increasingly strict control over 
 all the industries of the country. 
 
 The purpose of the Board was, generally speak 
 ing, to secure for the Government and the Allies 
 the goods essential for making war successfully, 
 and to protect the civil needs of the country. The 
 supply of raw materials to the manufacturer as well 
 as the delivery of finished products was closely 
 regulated by a system of priorities. The power of 
 the Board in its later development was dictatorial, 
 inasmuch as it might discipline any refractory pro 
 ducer or manufacturer by the withdrawal of the 
 assignments he expected. The leaders of each of 
 the more important industries were called into 
 
158 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 council, in order to determine resources and needs, 
 and the degree of preference to which each indus 
 try was entitled. Some were especially favored, in 
 order to stimulate production in a line that was of 
 particular importance or was failing to meet the 
 exigencies of the military situation; shipments to 
 others of a less essential character were deferred. 
 Committees of the Board studied industrial condi 
 tions and recommended the price that should be 
 fixed for various commodities; stability was thus 
 artificially secured and profiteering lessened. The 
 Conservation Division worked out and enforced 
 methods of standardising patterns in order to 
 economize materials and labor. The Steel Divi 
 sion cooperated with the manufacturers for the 
 speeding-up of production; and the Chemical Di 
 vision, among other duties, stimulated the vitally 
 important supply of potash, dyes, and nitrates. 
 Altogether it has been roughly estimated that the 
 industrial capacity of the country was increased by 
 twenty per cent through the organizing labors and 
 authority of the War Industries Board. 
 
 The success of this Board would have been im 
 possible without the building up of an extraordi 
 nary esprit de corps among the men who were 
 brought face to face with these difficult problems of 
 
THE HOME FRONT 
 
 industry and commerce. Their chairman relied, 
 of course, upon the cooperation of the leaders of 
 "big business," who now, in the hour of the coun 
 try s need, sank their prejudice against govern 
 mental interference and gave freely of their expe 
 rience, brains, and administrative power. Men 
 whose incomes were measured in the hundreds of 
 thousands forgot their own business and worked at 
 Washington on a salary of a dollar a year. 
 
 The same spirit of cooperation was evoked when 
 it came to the conservation and the production of 
 food. If steel was to win the war, its burden could 
 not be supported without wheat, and for some 
 months in 1917 and 1918 victory seemed to depend 
 largely upon whether the Allies could find enough 
 to eat. Even in normal times Great Britain and 
 France import large quantities of foodstuffs ; under 
 war conditions they were necessarily dependent 
 upon foreign grain -producing countries. The sur 
 plus grain of the Argentine and Australia was not 
 available because of the length of the voyage and 
 the scarcity of shipping; the Russian wheat supply 
 was cut off by enemy control of the Dardanelles 
 even before it was dissipated by corrupt officials or 
 reckless revolutionaries. The Allies, on the verge 
 of starvation, therefore looked to North America. 
 
160 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Yet the stock of cereals when the United States en 
 tered the war was at a lower level than it had been 
 for years and the number of food animals had also 
 been reduced. 
 
 To meet the crisis President Wilson called upon 
 one of the most interesting and commanding person 
 alities of modern times. Herbert Clark Hoover was 
 a Californian mining engineer, of broad experience 
 in Australia, China, and England, who in 1914 had 
 been given control of Allied Relief abroad. The fol 
 lowing year he undertook the difficult and delicate 
 task of organizing food relief for Belgium. He was 
 able to arouse the enthusiastic sympathy of Ameri 
 cans, win financial support on a large scale, procure 
 the much-needed food, and provide for its effective 
 distribution among the suffering Belgians, in spite 
 of the suspicions of the Germans and the hindrances 
 thrown in his path. A master organizer, with keen 
 flair for efficient subordinates, of broad vision never 
 muddied by details, with sound knowledge of busi 
 ness economics, and a gift for dramatic appeal, 
 Hoover was ideally fitted to conduct the greatest 
 experiment in economic organization the world had 
 seen. Unsentimental himself, he knew how to 
 arouse emotion a necessary quality, since the 
 food problem demanded heavy personal sacrifices 
 
THE HOME FRONT 161 
 
 which would touch every Individual; brusque in 
 manner, he avoided giving the offense which natu 
 rally follows any interference with the people s din 
 ner and which would destroy the essential spirit of 
 voluntary cooperation. 
 
 Five days after the declaration of war, President 
 Wilson, through the Council of National Defense, 
 named a committee on food supply, with Hoover 
 at its head, and shortly thereafter named him food 
 commissioner. Hoover began his work of educat 
 ing the people to realize the necessity of economy 
 and extra-production; but he lacked the adminis 
 trative powers which were essential if his work was 
 to prove effective, and it was not until August chat 
 Congress passed the Lever Act which provided for 
 strict control of food under an administrator. This 
 measure encountered strong opposition in the Sen 
 ate and from the farmers, who feared lest the pro 
 visions against hoarding of food would prevent 
 them from holding their products for high prices. 
 Wilson exerted his personal influence vigorously for 
 the bill in the face of congressional opposition, 
 which demanded that large powers of control 
 should be given to a Senate committee of ten, and 
 he was finally successful in his appeal. He there 
 upon appointed Hoover Food Administrator with 
 
162 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 practically unlimited powers, legalizing the work 
 already begun on his own initiative. 
 
 Hoover at once made arrangements to prevent 
 the storage of wheat in large quantities and to elim 
 inate speculative dealings in wheat on the grain ex 
 changes. He then offered to buy the entire wheat 
 crop at a fair price and agreed with the millers to 
 take flour at a fair advance on the price of wheat. 
 Fearful lest the farmers should be discouraged from 
 planting the following year, 1918, he offered to buy 
 all the wheat that could be raised at two dollars a 
 bushel. If peace came before the crop was disposed 
 of, the Government might be compelled to take 
 over the wheat at a higher price than the market, 
 but the offer was a necessary inducement to exten 
 sive planting. In the meantime Hoover appealed 
 to the country to utilize every scrap of ground for 
 the growing of food products. Every one of what 
 ever age and class turned gardener. The spacious 
 and perfectly trimmed lawns of the wealthy, as 
 well as the weed-infested back yards of the poor, 
 were dug up and planted with potatoes or corn. 
 Community gardens flourished in the villages and 
 outside of the larger towns, where men, women, 
 and children came out in the evening, after their 
 regular work, to labor with rake and hoe. There 
 
THE HOME FRONT 163 
 
 were perhaps two million "war gardens" over and 
 beyond the already established gardens, which un 
 questionably enabled many a citizen to reduce his 
 daily demands on the grocer, and stimulated his 
 interest in the problem of food conservation. As a 
 result of Hoover s dealing with the farmers, during 
 the year 1917 the planted wheat acreage exceeded 
 the average of the preceding five years by thirty- 
 five million acres, or by about twelve per cent, and 
 another additional five million acres were planted 
 in 1918. The result was the largest wheat crop in 
 American history except that of 1915, despite the 
 killing cold of the winter of 1917 and the withering 
 drought of the summer of 1918. An increase in the 
 number of live stock was also secured and the pro 
 duction of milk, meat, and wool showed a notable 
 development. 
 
 Hoover achieved equal success in the problem of 
 conserving food. He realized that he must bring 
 home to the individual housewife the need of the 
 closest economy, and he organized a nation-wide 
 movement to secure voluntary pledges that the 
 rules and requests of the Food Administration 
 would be observed. People were asked to use other 
 flours than wheat whenever possible, to be sparing 
 of sugar and meat, to utilize substitutes, and rigidly 
 
164 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 to avoid waste. On every billboard and in all the 
 newspapers were to be seen appeals to save food. 
 Housewives were enrolled as "members of the Food 
 Administration" and were given placards to post in 
 their windows announcing their membership and 
 the willingness of the family to abide by its re 
 quests. Certain days of the week were designated 
 as "wheatless" or "meatless" when voluntary 
 demi-fasts were to be observed, the nonobservance 
 of which spelled social ostracism. To "Hooverize" 
 became a national habit, and children were denied 
 a spoonful of sugar on their cereal, "because Mr. 
 Hoover would not like it." Hoover, with his broad 
 forehead, round face, compelling eyes, and under 
 hung jaw, became the benevolent bogey of the na 
 tion. It was a movement of general renunciation 
 such as no country had undergone except at the 
 pinch of biting necessity. x In the meantime prices 
 were prevented from rapid increase by a system of 
 licenses, which tended to prevent hoarding or 
 speculation. Attempts to capitalize the need of the 
 world for private gain, or in common parlance, to 
 
 1 Restaurants and hotels cooperated; during a period of only 
 two months they were reported as having saved nine thousand 
 tons of meat, four thousand tons of flour, and a thousand tons of 
 sugar. City garbage plants announced a decrease in the amount 
 of garbage collected ranging from ten to thirteen per cent. 
 
THE HOME FRONT 165 
 
 "profiteer," were comparatively rare and were 
 adequately punished by revocation of license or by 
 forced sale of hoardings. 
 
 As a result of the organization of food supply, the 
 stimulation of production, and the prevention of 
 waste, America was able to save the Entente na 
 tions, and, later, much of central and southeastern 
 Europe from starvation, without herself enduring 
 anything worse than discomfort. The Government 
 was able at the same time to provide the troops in 
 France with food which, to the poilus at least, 
 seemed luxurious. When the United States en 
 tered the war the country was prepared to ex 
 port 20,000,000 bushels of wheat; instead it sent 
 over 141,000,000. In four months, in the summer 
 of 1918, the American people saved out of their 
 regular consumption and sent abroad half a million 
 tons of sugar. The autumn of 1918 saw an increase 
 of nearly a million tons of pork products over what 
 was available the previous year. Altogether, 
 during the crop year of 1918, America doubled the 
 average amount of food sent to Europe imme 
 diately before the war, notwithstanding unfavor 
 able weather conditions and the congestion of 
 freight that resulted from other war necessities. 
 The total contribution in foodstuffs exported to 
 
166 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Europe that year amounted to a value of about 
 two billion dollars. This was done without food 
 cards and with a minimum of edicts. It was the 
 work of education and conscience. 
 
 Fuel like food was a war necessity and there was 
 equal need of stimulating production by assuring 
 a fair profit and of eliminating all possible waste. 
 Without the steam power provided by coal, raw 
 materials could not be transformed into the manu 
 factured articles demanded by military necessity, 
 nor distributed by the railroads and steamships. 
 Soon after the declaration of war, a committee of 
 coal operators, meeting under the authorization of 
 the Council of National Defense, drew up a plan 
 for the stimulation of coal production and its more 
 economical distribution. This committee volun 
 tarily set a price for coal lower than the current 
 market price, in order to prevent a rise in manu 
 facturing costs; it was approved by the Secretary 
 of the Interior, who warmly praised the spirit of 
 sacrifice displayed by the operators. Unfortu 
 nately the Secretary of War, as chairman of the 
 Council of National Defense, repudiated the ar 
 rangement, on the ground that the price agreed 
 upon was too high. The operators were discour 
 aged, because of the difficulty of stimulating 
 
THE HOME FRONT 167 
 
 production under the lower price which Secretary 
 Baker insisted upon; they were further disappoint 
 ed at the postponement of plans for a zone system 
 and an elimination of long cross hauls, designed to 
 relieve the load that would be thrown upon railroad 
 transportation in the coming winter. 
 
 In August, Wilson was empowered by the Lever 
 Act to appoint a Fuel Administrator and chose 
 Harry A. Garfield, President of Williams College. 
 Conditions, however, became more confused. The 
 fuel problem was one of transportation quite as 
 much as of production; the railroads were unable 
 to furnish the needed coal-cars, and because of an 
 expensive and possibly unfair system of car allot 
 ment, coal distribution was hampered. Add to 
 this the fact that numerous orders for coal ship 
 ments had been deferred until autumn, in the belief 
 that the Administration, which in the person of 
 Baker was not believed to look on the coal opera 
 tors with favor, would enforce low prices. Hence 
 during the last three months of the year an un 
 precedented amount of coal had to be shipped, and 
 the congestion on the competing railroads was such 
 that the country faced a real coal famine. In 
 December, the Government recognized the obvious 
 fact that the railroad must be placed under one 
 
168 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 management, if the confusion in the whole indus 
 trial situation were to be eliminated. President 
 Wilson accordingly announced that the Federal 
 Government would take over the railroads for the 
 period of the war. 
 
 This measure came too late to save the country 
 from the evil effects of the fuel shortage. The 
 penalty for the delays of the preceding summer had 
 to be paid, and it was the heavier because of the 
 severity of the winter. Overloaded trains were 
 stalled and harbors froze over, imprisoning the 
 coal barges. Thirty-seven ships laden with essen 
 tial military supplies were held up in New York 
 harbor for lack of fuel, and long strings of empties 
 blocked the sidings, while the shippers all over the 
 country cried for cars. To meet the crisis Garfield 
 decreed that all manufacturing plants east of the 
 Mississippi should be shut down for five days and 
 for a series of Mondays, until the 25th of March. 
 The order applied also to places of amusement, 
 private offices, and most stores, which were not 
 allowed to furnish heat. Munitions plants and 
 essential industries, as well as Government offices 
 were naturally excepted. "Heatless Mondays" 
 caused great inconvenience and bitter criticism, 
 for they came at the moment when it was most 
 
THE HOME FRONT 169 
 
 important that the economic life of the nation 
 should be functioning at its greatest efficiency. 
 But the embargo helped to tide over the crisis. 
 As in the case of food, the public, once it appre 
 ciated the necessity of the situation, accepted it 
 cheerfully. Domestic economy was also widely 
 preached and applied, to the slogan, "Save a 
 shovelful of coal a day." The elimination of elec 
 tric advertisements and the diminution of street 
 lighting, served to lessen the non-essential demand 
 for coal; and the crisis also forced the introduction 
 of "daylight saving, " the advancement of the clock 
 by an hour, during the months extending from 
 March to October, thus saving artificial light. 
 
 In the meantime the Fuel Administration, the 
 operators, and the miners were cooperating to 
 increase coal production. The enthusiasm of the 
 mine workers was stimulated by making them 
 realize that they were indeed part of the fighting 
 forces. A competitive spirit was aroused and 
 mining conditions were bettered to keep them 
 satisfied. Labor responded to the call. Holidays 
 were omitted and emulation between different 
 shifts became keen. 1 Increased production was 
 
 1 In 1918 the average number of days worked by each miner 
 in the bituminous fields was greater by twelve than that of 1917, 
 
170 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 paralleled by more efficient distribution. A zone 
 system, finally put into operation, eliminated 
 approximately 160,000,000 car miles. Local fuel 
 administrators kept in constant touch with the 
 need of the localities under their jurisdiction, stud 
 ied methods of abolishing unnecessary manufac 
 turing use of coal and refused coal to non-essential 
 industries. 
 
 Similar increase in the production and saving of 
 oil was accomplished. The oil-burning vessels of 
 the allied navies and merchant marines, the motor 
 transport service of the armies, all made this neces 
 sary. In 1918 the production of oil in the United 
 States was fourteen per cent greater than in 1914. 
 In response to an urgent cable from Marshal Foch, 
 which ran : " If you don t keep up your petrol supply 
 we shall lose the war," a series of "gasless Sun 
 days" was suggested. For nearly two months, 
 merely at the request of the Fuel Administration 
 and without any compulsion except that arising 
 from public opinion, Sunday motoring was practi 
 cally abandoned. That most crowded of motor 
 
 and by twenty-five than that of 1916. During the half-year pe 
 riod from April to September, 1918, bituminous production was 
 twelve per cent greater than in the corresponding period of the 
 previous year, which had itself established a record, despite the 
 decrease in the number of mine workers. 
 
THE HOME FRONT 171 
 
 thoroughfares, the Boston Post Road from New 
 York to Stamford, might have served as playground 
 for a kindergarten . The estimated saving of gasoline 
 amounted to a million barrels : about four per cent 
 of the gasoline sent abroad in 1918 was provided 
 by the gasless Sundays. 
 
 Credit must be given the Fuel Administration 
 for the large measure of success which it finally 
 secured. It was slow in its early organization and 
 at first failed to make full use of the volunteer 
 committees of coal operators and labor representa 
 tives who offered their assistance and whose ex 
 perience qualified them to give invaluable advice. 
 But Garfield showed his capacity for learning the 
 basic facts of the situation, and ultimately chose 
 strong advisers. When he entered upon his duties 
 he found the crisis so far advanced that it could 
 not be immediately solved. Furthermore, in a 
 situation which demanded the closest cooperation 
 between the Fuel and the Railroad Administration, 
 he did not always receive the assistance from the 
 latter which he had a right to expect. 
 
 As a war measure, the temporary nationalization 
 of the railroads was probably necessary. Whatever 
 the ultimate advantages of private ownership and 
 the system of competition, during the period of 
 
172 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 military necessity perfect coordination was essen 
 tial. Railroad facilities could not be improved 
 because new equipment, so far as it could be manu 
 factured, had to be sent abroad; the only solution 
 of the problem of congestion seemed to be an 
 improvement of service. During the first nine 
 months after the declaration of war a notable 
 increase in the amount of freight carried was 
 effected; nevertheless, as winter approached, it 
 became obvious that the roads were not operat 
 ing as a unit and could not carry the load de 
 manded of them. Hence resulted the appointment 
 of McAdoo in December, 1917, as Director- 
 General, with power to operate all the railroads as 
 a single line. 
 
 During the spring of 1918 the Administration 
 gradually overcame the worst of the transporta 
 tion problems. To the presidents and management 
 of the various railroads must go the chief share of 
 credit for the successful accomplishment of this 
 titanic task. Despite their distrust of McAdoo 
 and their objections to his methods, they co 
 operated loyally with the Railroad Administration 
 in putting through the necessary measures of co 
 ordination and in the elimination of the worst 
 features of the former competitive system. They 
 
THE HOME FRONT 173 
 
 adopted a permit system which prevented the load 
 ing of freight unless it could be unloaded at its des 
 tination; they insisted upon more rapid unloading 
 of cars; they consolidated terminals to facilitate the 
 handling of cars; they curtailed circuitous routing 
 of freight; they reduced the use of Pullman cars for 
 passenger service. As a result, after May, 1918, 
 congestion was diminished and during the summer 
 was no longer acute. This was accomplished 
 despite the number of troops moved, amounting 
 during the first ten months of 1918 to six and a half 
 millions. In addition the railroads carried large 
 quantities of food, munitions, building materials 
 for cantonments, and other supplies, most of which 
 converged upon eastern cities and ports. The in 
 crease in the number of grain-carrying cars alone, 
 from July to November, was 135,000 over the same 
 period of the previous year. 
 
 Unquestionably the Government s administra 
 tion of the railroads has a darker side. Complaints 
 were frequent that the Railroad Administration 
 sacrificed other interests for its own advantage. 
 The future of the roads was said not to be care 
 fully safeguarded, and equipment and rolling stock 
 mishandled and allowed to deteriorate. Above all, 
 at the moment when it was quite as essential to 
 
174 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 preserve the morale of labor on the home front as 
 that of the troops in France, McAdoo made con 
 cessions to labor that were more apt to destroy 
 discipline and esprit de corps than to maintain them. 
 The authority given for the unionization of rail 
 road employees, the stopping of piecework, the 
 creation of shop committees, weakened the control 
 of the foremen and led to a loss of shop efficiency 
 which has been estimated at thirty per cent. 
 Government control was necessary, but in the form 
 in which it came it proved costly. 
 
 During the months when manufacturing plants 
 were built and their output speeded up, when fuel 
 and food were being produced in growing amounts, 
 when the stalled freight trains were being disen 
 tangled, there was unceasing call for ocean-going 
 tonnage. Food and war materials would be of 
 little use unless the United States had the ships in 
 which to transport them across the Atlantic. The 
 Allies sorely needed American help to replace the 
 tonnage sunk by German submarines; during some 
 months, Allied shipping was being destroyed at the 
 rate of six million tons a year. Furthermore if an 
 effective military force were to be transported to 
 France, according to the plans that germinated in 
 the summer of 1917, there would be need of every 
 
THE HOME FRONT 175 
 
 possible cubic inch of tonnage. The entire military 
 situation hinged upon the shipping problem. Yet 
 when the United States joined in war on Germany 
 there was not a shipyard in the country which 
 would accept a new order; every inch of available 
 space was taken by the navy or private business. 
 
 In September, 1916, the United States Shipping 
 Board had been organized to operate the Emer 
 gency Fleet Corporation, which had been set up 
 primarily to develop trade with South America. 
 This body now prepared a gigantic programme of 
 shipbuilding, which expanded as the need for ton 
 nage became more evident. By November 15, 
 1917, the Board planned for 1200 ships with 
 dead weight tonnage of seven and a half millions. 
 The difficulties of building new yards, of collect 
 ing trained workmen and technicians were un 
 doubtedly great, but they might have been over 
 come more easily had not unfortunate differences 
 developed between William Denman, the chair 
 man of the Board, who advocated wooden ships, 
 and General George W. Goethals, the head of the 
 Emergency Fleet Corporation, who depended up 
 on steel construction. The differences led to the 
 resignation of both and continued disorganization 
 hampered the rapid fulfillment of the programme. 
 
176 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Edward N. Hurley became chairman of the Ship 
 ping Board, but it was not until the spring of 1918, 
 when Charles M. Schwab of the Bethlehem Steel 
 Company was put in charge of the Emergency 
 Fleet Corporation as Director General of ship 
 building, that public confidence in ultimate success 
 seemed justified. 
 
 Much of the work accomplished during the latter 
 days of the war was spectacular. Waste lands 
 along the Delaware overgrown with weeds were 
 transformed within a year into a shipyard with 
 twenty-eight ways, a ship under construction on 
 each one, with a record of fourteen ships already 
 launched. The spirit of the workmen was voiced 
 by the placard that hung above the bulletin board 
 announcing daily progress, which proclaimed, 
 "Three ships a week or bust." The Hog Island 
 yards near Philadelphia and the Fore River yards 
 in Massachusetts became great cities with docks, 
 sidings, shops, offices, and huge stacks of building 
 materials. Existing yards, such as those on the 
 Great Lakes, were enlarged so that in fourteen 
 months they sent to the ocean a fleet of 181 steel 
 vessels. The new ships were standardized and 
 built on the "fabricated" system, which provided 
 for the manufacture of the various parts in different 
 
THE HOME FRONT 177 
 
 factories and their assembling at the shipyards. 
 In a single day, July 4, 1918, there were launched 
 in American shipyards ninety-five vessels, with a 
 dead weight tonnage of 474,464. In one of the 
 Great Lakes yards a 5500 ton steel freighter was 
 launched seventeen days after the keel was laid, 
 and seventeen days later was delivered to the 
 Shipping Board, complete and ready for service. 
 
 This work was not accomplished without tre 
 mendous expenditure and much waste. The 
 Shipping Board was careless in its financial manage 
 ment and unwise in many of its methods. By in 
 troducing the cost plus system in the letting of 
 contracts it fostered extravagance and waste and 
 increased and intensified the industrial evils that 
 had resulted from its operation in the building of 
 army cantonments. The contractors received the 
 cost of construction plus a percentage commission; 
 obviously they had no incentive to economize; 
 the greater the expense the larger their commission. 
 Hence they willingly paid exorbitant prices for 
 materials and agreed to "fancy" wages. Not 
 merely was the expense of securing the necessary 
 tonnage multiplied, but the cost of materials and 
 labor in all other industries was seriously enhanced. 
 The high wages paid tended to destroy the patriotic 
 
178 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 spirit of the shipworkers, who were enticed by 
 greed rather than by the glory of service. The 
 effect on drafted soldiers was bound to be unfor 
 tunate, for they could not but realize the injustice 
 of a system which gave them low pay for risking 
 their lives, while their friends in the shipyards re 
 ceived fabulous wages. Such aspects of the early 
 days of the Shipping Board were ruthlessly re 
 formed by Schwab when he took control of the 
 Emergency Fleet Corporation. Appealing to the 
 patriotism of the workers he reduced costs and in 
 creased efficiency, according to some critics, by 
 thirty per cent, according to others, by no less 
 than one hundred and ten per cent. 
 
 By September, 1918, the Shipping Board had 
 brought under its jurisdiction 2600 vessels with a 
 total dead weight tonnage of more than ten millions. 
 Of this fleet, sixteen per cent had been built by the 
 Emergency Fleet Corporation. The remainder was 
 represented by ships which the Board had requi 
 sitioned when America entered the war, by the 
 ships of Allied and neutral countries which had 
 been purchased and chartered, and by interned 
 enemy ships which had been seized. The last- 
 named were damaged by their crews at the time 
 of the declaration of war, but were fitted for 
 
THE HOME FRONT 179 
 
 service with little delay by a new process of elec 
 tric welding. Such German boats as the Vaterland, 
 rechristened the Leviathan, and the George Wash 
 ington, together with smaller ships, furnished half 
 a million tons of German cargo-space. The ships 
 which transported American soldiers were not chief 
 ly provided by the Shipping Board, more than fifty 
 per cent being represented by boats borrowed from 
 Great Britain. r 
 
 More effective use of shipping was fostered by 
 the War Trade Board, which had been created six 
 months after the declaration of war by the Trading 
 with the Enemy Act (October 6, 1917), and which, 
 in conjunction with the activities of the Alien Prop 
 erty Custodian, possessed full powers to curtail 
 enemy trade. It thereby obtained practical control 
 of the foreign commerce of this country, and was able 
 both to conserve essential products for American use 
 and to secure and economize tonnage. 
 
 Such control was assured through a system of 
 
 1 In the last six months of the war over 1,500,000 men were car 
 ried abroad as follows: 
 
 44 per cent in United States ships 
 51 per cent in British ships 
 
 3 per cent in Italian ships 
 
 2 per cent in French ships 
 
 The United States transports included 450,000 tons of German 
 origin; 300,000 tons supplied by commandeered Dutch boats; and 
 718,000 tons provided by the Emergency Fleet Corporation. 
 
180 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 licenses for exports and imports. No goods could 
 be shipped into or out of the country without a 
 license, which was granted by the War Trade 
 Board only after investigation of the character of 
 the shipment and its destination or source. The 
 earlier export of goods which had found their 
 way to Germany through neutral countries was 
 thus curtailed and the blockade on Germany be 
 came strangling. Products necessary to military 
 effectiveness were secured from neutral states 
 in return for permission to buy essentials here. 
 Two millions of tonnage were obtained from neu 
 tral states for the use of the United States and 
 Great Britain. Trade in non-essentials with the 
 Orient and South America was limited, extra 
 bottoms were thus acquired, and the production 
 of non-essentials at home discouraged. Altogether, 
 the War Trade Board exercised tremendous pow 
 ers which, however necessary, might have pro 
 voked intense resentment in business circles; but 
 these powers were enforced with a tact and dis 
 cretion characteristic of the head of the Board, 
 Vance McCormick, who was able successfully to 
 avoid the irritation that might have been expected 
 from such governmental interference with freedom 
 of commerce. 
 
THE HOME FRONT 181 
 
 The problem of labor was obviously one that 
 must be faced by each of the war boards or ad 
 ministrations, and nearly all of them were com 
 pelled to establish some sort of labor division or 
 tribunal within each separate field. The demands 
 made upon the labor market by war industry were 
 heavy, for the withdrawal of labor into the army 
 created an inevitable scarcity at the moment when 
 production must be increased, and the different 
 industries naturally were brought to bid against 
 each other; the value of any wage scale was con 
 stantly affected by the rising prices, while the 
 introduction of inexperienced workmen and women 
 affected the conditions of piecework, so that the 
 question of wages and conditions of labor gave 
 rise to numerous discussions. The Labor Com 
 mittee of the Council of National Defense had 
 undertaken to meet such problems as early as 
 February, 1917, but it was not until the begin 
 ning of the next year that the Department of 
 Labor underwent a notable reorganization with 
 the purpose of effecting the coordination necessary 
 to complete success. 
 
 Unlike the food, fuel, and transportation prob 
 lems, which were solved through new adminis 
 trations not connected with the Department of 
 
182 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Agriculture, the Bureau of Mines, or the Inter 
 state Commerce Commission respectively, that of 
 labor was met by new bureaus and boards which 
 were organic parts of the existing Department 
 of Labor. In January, 1918, that Department 
 undertook the formulation and administration of 
 a national war labor policy. Shortly afterwards 
 delegates of the National Industrial Conference 
 Board and of the American Federation of Labor, 
 representing capital and labor, worked out a 
 unanimous report upon the principles to be fol 
 lowed in labor adjustment. To enforce these 
 recommendations the President, on April 9, 1918, 
 appointed a National War Labor Board, which 
 until November sat as a court of final appeal in 
 labor disputes. An index of the importance of 
 the Board was given by the choice of ex-President 
 Taft as one of its chairmen. A month later, a War 
 Labor Policies Board was added to the system to 
 lay down general rules for the use of the War Labor 
 Board in the rendering of its judgments. 
 
 Not merely enthusiasm and brains enabled 
 America to make the extraordinary efforts de 
 manded by the exigencies of war. Behind every 
 line of activity lay the need of money; and the 
 raising of money in amounts so large that they 
 
THE HOME FRONT 
 
 passed the comprehension of the average citizen, 
 forms one of the most romantic stories of the war. 
 It is the story of the enthusiastic cooperation of 
 rich and poor : Wall Street and the humblest foreign 
 immigrants gave of their utmost in the attempt to 
 provide the all-important funds for America and 
 her associates in the war. Citizens accepted the 
 weight of income and excess profit taxes far heavier 
 than any American had previously dreamed of. 
 They were asked in addition to buy government 
 bonds to a total of fourteen billions, and they re 
 sponded by oversubscribing this amount by nearly 
 five billions. Of the funds needed for financing the 
 war, the Government planned to raise about a 
 third by taxation, and the remainder by the sale of 
 bonds and certificates maturing in from five to 
 thirty years. It would have proved the financial 
 statesmanship of McAdoo had he dared to raise a 
 larger proportion by taxation; for thus much of the 
 inflation which inevitably resulted from the bond 
 issues might have been avoided. But the Govern 
 ment feared alike for its popularity and for the 
 immediate effect upon business, which could not 
 safely be discouraged. As it was, the excess profit 
 taxes aroused great complaint. The amount raised 
 in direct taxation represented a larger proportion 
 
184 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 of the war budget than any foreign nation had been 
 able to secure from tax revenues. 
 
 In seeking to sell its bonds the Government, 
 rather against its will, was compelled to rely largely 
 upon the capitalists. The large popular subscrip 
 tions would have been impossible but for the assist 
 ance and enthusiasm shown by the banks in the 
 selling campaign. Wall Street and the bankers of 
 the country were well prepared and responded with 
 all their strength, a response which deserves the 
 greater credit when we remember the lack of sym 
 pathy which had existed between financial circles 
 and President Wilson s Administration. Largely 
 under banking auspices the greatest selling cam 
 paign on record was inaugurated. Bonds were 
 placed on sale at street corners, in theaters, and 
 restaurants; disposed of by eminent operatic stars, 
 moving-picture favorites, and wounded heroes 
 from the front. Steeple jacks attracted crowds by 
 their perilous antics, in order to start the bidding 
 for subscriptions. Villages and isolated farm 
 houses were canvassed. The banks used their 
 entire machinery to induce subscriptions, offering 
 to advance the subscription price. When during 
 the first loan campaign the rather unwise optimism 
 of the Treasury cooled enthusiasm for a moment, 
 
THE HOME FRONT 185 
 
 by making it appear that the loan could be floated 
 without effort, Wall Street took up the load. The 
 first loan was oversubscribed by a billion. The 
 success of the three loans that followed was equally 
 great; the fourth, coming in October, 1918, was set 
 for six billion dollars, the largest amount that had 
 ever been asked of any people, and after a three 
 weeks campaign, seven billions were subscribed. 
 Quite as notable as the amount raised was the 
 progressive increase in the number of subscribers, 
 which ranged from four million individuals in the 
 first loan to more than twenty-one millions in the 
 fourth. Equally notable, as indicating the educa 
 tive effect of the war and of the sale of these 
 Liberty Bonds, was the successful effort to en 
 courage thrift. War Savings societies were insti 
 tuted and children saved their pennies and nickels 
 to buy twenty -five cent "thrift stamps" which 
 might be accumulated to secure interest-bearing 
 savings certificates. Down to November 1, 1918, 
 the sale of such stamps totalled $834,253,000, with 
 a maturity value of more than a billion dollars. 
 
 The successful organizing of national resources 
 to supply military demands obviously depended, 
 in the last instance, upon the education of the 
 people to a desire for service and sacrifice. The 
 
186 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Liberty Loan campaigns, the appeals of Hoover, 
 and the Fuel Administration, all were of impor 
 tance in producing such morale. In addition the 
 Council of National Defense, through the Com 
 mittee on Public Information, spread pamphlets 
 emphasizing the issues of the war and the objects 
 for which we were fighting. At every theater and 
 moving-picture show, in the factories during the 
 noon hours, volunteer speakers told briefly of the 
 needs of the Government and appealed for co 
 operation. These were the so-called "Four Minute 
 Men." The most noted artists gave their talent to 
 covering the billboards with patriotic and infor 
 mative posters. Blue Devils who had fought at 
 Verdun, captured tanks, and airplanes, were parad 
 ed in order to bring home the realities of the life 
 and death struggle in which America was engaged. 
 The popular response was inspiring. In the face 
 of the national enthusiasm the much-vaunted 
 plans of the German Government for raising civil 
 disturbance fell to the ground. Labor was some 
 times disorganized by German propaganda; de 
 struction of property or war material was accom 
 plished by German agents; and valuable informa 
 tion sometimes leaked out to the enemy. But 
 the danger was always kept in check by the 
 
THE HOME FRONT 187 
 
 Department of Justice and also by a far-reach* 
 ing citizen organization, the American Protective 
 League. Equally surprising was the lack of opposi 
 tion to the war on the part of pacifists and socialists. 
 It was rare to find the "sedition" for which some 
 of them were punished, perhaps over-promptly, 
 translated from words to actions. 
 
 The organization of the industrial resources of 
 the nation was complicated by the same conditions 
 that affected the purely military problems de 
 centralization and the emergency demands that 
 resulted from the sudden decision to send a large 
 expeditionary force to France. The various or 
 ganizing boards were so many individual solutions 
 for individual problems. At the beginning of the 
 war the Council of National Defense represented 
 the only attempt at a central business organiza 
 tion, and as time went on the importance and the 
 influence of the Council diminished. The effects of 
 decentralization became painfully apparent during 
 the bitter cold of the winter months, when the 
 fuel, transportation, and food crises combined to 
 threaten almost complete paralysis of the economic 
 and military mobilization. 
 
 The distrust and discouragement that followed 
 
188 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 brought forth furious attacks upon the President s 
 war policies, led not merely by Roosevelt and Re 
 publican enemies of the Administration, but by 
 Democratic Senators. The root of the whole 
 difficulty, they contended, lay in the fact that 
 Wilson had no policy. They demanded practically 
 the abdication of the presidential control of mili 
 tary affairs, either through the creation of a Minis 
 try of Munitions or of a War Cabinet. In either 
 case Congress would control the situation through 
 its definition of the powers of the new organization 
 and the appointment of its personnel. 
 
 President Wilson utilized the revolt to secure 
 the complete centralization toward which he had 
 been aiming. He fought the new proposals on the 
 ground that they merely introduced new machinery 
 to complicate the war organization, and he in 
 sisted that true policy demanded rather an increase 
 in the efficiency of existing machinery. If the 
 General Staff and the War Industries Board were 
 given power to supervise and execute as well as to 
 plan, the country would have the machinery at 
 hand capable of forming a central organization, 
 which could determine in the first place what was 
 wanted and where, and in the second place how it 
 could be supplied. All that was necessary was to 
 
THE HOME FRONT 189 
 
 give the President a free hand to effect any trans 
 fer of organization, funds, or functions in any of 
 the existing departments of government, without 
 being compelled to apply to Congress in each case. 
 The struggle between Wilson and his opponents 
 was sharp, but the President carried the day. He 
 exerted to the full his influence on Congress and 
 utilized skillfully the argument that at this moment 
 of crisis a swapping of horses might easily prove 
 fatal. Opposing Congressmen drew back at the 
 thought of shouldering the responsibility which 
 they knew the President would throw upon them 
 if he were defeated. On May 20, 1918, the Over 
 man Act became law, giving to the President the 
 blanket powers which he demanded and which he 
 immediately used to centralize the military and 
 industrial organization. Bureau chiefs were bitter 
 in their disapproval; the National Guard grumbled, 
 even as it fought its best battles in France; poli 
 ticians saw their chance of influencing military 
 affairs disappear; business men complained of the 
 economic dictatorship thus secured by the Presi 
 dent. But Mr. Wilson was at last in a position 
 to effect that which seemed to him of greatest 
 importance the concentration of responsibility 
 and authority. 
 
190 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Upon the shoulders of the President, accord 
 ingly, must rest in the last instance the major 
 portion of the blame and the credit to be distrib 
 uted for the mistakes and the achievements of the 
 military and economic organization. He took no 
 part in the working out of details. Once the de 
 velopment of any committee of organization had 
 been started, he left the control of it entirely to 
 those who had been placed in charge. But he 
 would have been untrue to his nature if he had not 
 at all times been determined to keep the reins of 
 supreme control in his own hands. His opponents 
 insisted that the organization was formed in spite 
 of him. It is probable that he did not himself 
 perceive the crying need for centralization so 
 clearly in 1917 as he did in 1918; and the protests 
 of his political opponents doubtless brought the 
 realization of its necessity more definitely home to 
 him. But there is no evidence to indicate that the 
 process of centralization was forced upon him 
 against his will and much to show that he sought 
 always that concentration of responsibility and 
 power which he insisted upon in politics. The task 
 was herculean; ironically enough it was facilitated 
 by the revolt against his war policies which resulted 
 in the Senate investigation and the Overman Act. 
 
THE HOME FRONT 191 
 
 His tactics were by no means above reproach, and 
 his entire policy nearly went on the rocks in the 
 winter of 1917 because of his inability to treat 
 successfully with the Senate and with Republican 
 Congressmen. 
 
 When all is said, however, the organization that 
 was developed during the last six months of the 
 war transported and maintained in Europe more 
 than a million and a half American soldiers; at 
 home it maintained two millions more, ready to sail 
 at the earliest opportunity; and it was prepared to 
 raise and equip an army of five and a half millions 
 by June 30, 1920. The process had been slow and 
 the results were not apparent for many months. 
 Furthermore, because of the intensity of the danger 
 and the absolute need of victory, cherished tradi 
 tions were sacrificed and steps taken which were to 
 cost much later on; for the price of these achieve 
 ments was inevitable reaction and social unrest. 
 But with all the mistakes and all the cost, the fact 
 still remains that the most gigantic transformation 
 of history the transformation of an unmili- 
 tary and peace-loving nation of ninety million 
 souls into a belligerent power was successfully 
 accomplished. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE FIGHTING FRONT 
 
 THE encouragement given to the Allies by the 
 entrance of the United States into the war injected 
 a temporary ray of brightness into the situation 
 abroad, but with the realization that long months 
 must elapse before American aid could prove effec 
 tive, came deep disappointment. The spring of 
 1917 did not bring the expected success to the 
 French and British on the western front; and the 
 summer and autumn carried intense discourage 
 ment. Hindenburg, early in the spring, executed a 
 skillful retreat on the Somme front, which gave to 
 the Allies the territory to which their previous 
 capture of Peronne and Bapaume entitled them. 
 But the Germans, losing some square miles, saved 
 their troops and supplies. British attacks on the 
 north gained little ground at terrible cost. The 
 French offensive, planned by Nivelle, which was 
 designed to break the German line, had to be given 
 
 192 
 
THE FIGHTING FRONT 193 
 
 up after bloody checks. There was mutiny in 
 the French armies and the morale of the civilian 
 population sank. 
 
 The hopes that had been aroused by the Russian 
 revolution were seen to be deceptive; instead of a 
 national movement directed towards a more active 
 struggle against Germany, it now appeared in its 
 true colors as a demand for peace and land above 
 everything. The Brusilov attack, which the Allies 
 insisted upon, proved to be a flash in the pan and 
 ended with the complete military demoralization 
 of Russian armies. The collapse of the Italian 
 forces at Caporetto followed. Italy was not merely 
 unable to distract the attention of the Central 
 Powers by a determined offensive against Austria, 
 but she threatened to become a liability; no one 
 knew how many French divisions might have to 
 be diverted to aid in the defense of the new Piave 
 front. General Byng s break of the German lines 
 at Cambrai was more than offset by the equally 
 brilliant German counter-attack. And every day 
 the submarine was taking its toll of Allied shipping. 
 
 Following the Italian debacle, the Bolshevik 
 revolution of November indicated that Russia 
 would wholly withdraw and that that great poten 
 tial source of man-power for the Allies could no 
 13 
 
194 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 longer be counted upon. Allied leaders realized 
 that Germany would be able to transfer large 
 numbers of troops to the western front, and be 
 came seriously alarmed. "The Allies are very 
 weak," cabled General Pershing, on the 2d of 
 December, "and we must come to their relief this 
 year, 1918. The year after may be too late. It is 
 very doubtful if they can hold on until 1919 unless 
 we give them a lot of support this year." Showing 
 that the schedule of troop shipments would be 
 inadequate and complaining that the actual ship 
 ments were not even being kept up to programme, 
 Pershing insisted upon the importance of the 
 most strenuous efforts to secure extra tonnage, 
 which alone would make it possible for the Amer 
 ican army to take a proper share in the military 
 operations of 1918. 
 
 The serious representations of General Pershing 
 were reinforced by Colonel House when he returned 
 from abroad on the 15th of December. For six 
 weeks he had been in conference, as .head of a war 
 mission, with the Allied political and military 
 leaders, who now realized the necessity of unity of 
 plan. Because of his personal intimacy with 
 French and British statesmen and his acknowl 
 edged skill in negotiations, House had done much 
 
THE FIGHTING FRONT 195 
 
 to bring about Allied harmony and to pave the 
 way for a supreme military command. Like Per- 
 shing, he was convinced of the danger threatening 
 the Allies, and from the moment of his return 
 began the speeding-up process, which was to result 
 in the presence of a large American force on the 
 battle front at the moment of crisis in the early 
 summer of 1918. 
 
 Tonnage was obviously the vital factor upon 
 which effective military assistance depended. The 
 United States had the men, although they were not 
 completely trained, but the apparent impossibility 
 of transporting them formed the great obstacle. 
 The problem could not have been solved without 
 the assistance of the Allies. With the threat of the 
 German drive, and especially after the first Ger 
 man victories of 1918, they began to appreciate 
 the necessity of sacrificing everything to the ton 
 nage necessary to transport American soldiers to 
 France. After long hesitation they agreed to a 
 pooling of Allied tonnage for this purpose. Most 
 of the Allied ships ultimately furnished the United 
 States were provided by the British, whose trans 
 ports carried a million American troops to France. 
 French and Italian boats transported 112,000; our 
 own transports, 927,000. 
 
196 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Thus by relying largely upon the shipping assist 
 ance of our associates in the war we were able to 
 respond to the demands of General Pershing and, 
 later, Marshal Foch. And thus came about the 
 extraordinary development of our military pro 
 gramme from the thirty to the eighty and one hun 
 dred division plans, which resulted in tremendous 
 confusion, but which also ultimately ensured Allied 
 victory in 1918. Until the end of the year 1917, 
 we had put into France only 195,000 troops, in 
 cluding 7500 marines, an average of about 28,000 
 a month. From December to February the aver 
 age rose to 48,000; from March to May it was 
 149,000; and from June to August it was 290,000 
 men a month. During the four months from May 
 to August inclusive, 1,117,000 American troops 
 were transported to France. 
 
 Altogether about two million Americans were 
 sent to France, without the loss of a single man 
 while under the escort of United States vessels. 
 No navy troop transports were torpedoed on east- 
 bound trips although three were sunk on the re 
 turn trip with loss of 138 lives. To the American 
 and British navies must go the credit for carrying 
 through this stupendous feat, and in the work of 
 assuring the safety of the troop transports the navy 
 
THE FIGHTING FRONT 197 
 
 of the United States may claim recognition for the 
 larger share, since 82 per cent of the escorts fur 
 nished were American cruisers and destroyers. It 
 was a nerve-racking and tantalizing experience 
 the troop ships sailing in echelon formation, pre 
 ceded, followed, and flanked by destroyers; at night 
 every glimmer of light eclipsed, the ships speeding 
 ahead in perfect blackness, each inch of the sea swept 
 by watchful eyes to discover the telltale ripple of a 
 periscope or the trail of a torpedo, gun crews on the 
 alert, depth bombs ready. Nor was the crossing 
 anything like a vacation yachting cruise for the 
 doughboys transported, packed as they were like 
 sardines two and three decks below the waterline* 
 brought up in shifts to catch a brief taste of fresh 
 air, assailed at once by homesickness, seasickness, 
 and fears of drowning like rats in a trap. 
 
 The work of the navy was far more extensive, 
 moreover, than the safe convoying of troop ships, 
 important though that was. The very first con 
 tingent of American overseas fighting forces was 
 made up of two flotillas of destroyers, which upon 
 the declaration of war had been sent to Queens- 
 town where they were placed under the command 
 of Admiral William S. Sims. Their main function 
 Was to hunt submarines, which, since the decree of 
 
198 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 the 1st of February, had succeeded in committing 
 frightful ravages upon Allied commerce and seri 
 ously threatened to starve the British Isles. Ad 
 miral Sims was two years older than Pershing and 
 as typical a sailor as the former was soldier. With 
 his bluff and genial, yet dignified, manner, his rubi 
 cund complexion, closely-trimmed white beard, 
 and piercing eyes, no one could have mistaken his 
 calling. Free of speech, frank in praise and criti 
 cism, abounding in indiscretions, he possessed the 
 capacity to make the warmest friends and enemies. 
 He was an ardent admirer of the British, rejoiced 
 in fighting with them, and ashamed that our Navy 
 Department was unwilling to send more adequate 
 and immediate assistance to their fleet. Sims s 
 international reputation as an expert in naval 
 affairs was of long standing. Naval officers in 
 every country of Europe knew of him as the in 
 ventor of a system of fire control which had been 
 adopted by the great navies of the world, and it 
 was largely because of his studies and devices that 
 the extraordinary records of the American fleets 
 at target practice had been secured. The British 
 naval officers reciprocated Sims s admiration for 
 them, and, according to popular belief , it was at their 
 special request that he had been sent to command 
 
THE FIGHTING FRONT 199 
 
 our overseas naval forces. No one else could have 
 obtained such effective cooperation between the 
 British and American fleets. 
 
 While at first the major portion of the American 
 fleet was retained in home waters for the protection 
 of American coasts and ports, a policy which 
 aroused the stinging criticism of Admiral Sims, 
 gradually the fleet added strength to the Allied 
 navies in their patrol of European coasts and the 
 bottling-up of the German high seas fleet. De 
 stroyer bases were maintained at Queenstown, 
 Brest, and Gibraltar, from which were dispatched 
 constant patrols. Individual destroyers, during 
 the first year of service overseas, steamed a total 
 of 60,000 miles. Their crews were on the watch 
 in the dirtiest weather, unable to sleep, tossed and 
 battered by the incessant rolling, without warm 
 food, facing the constant peril of being swept over 
 board and knowing that their boat could not stop 
 to pick them up. American submarine-chasers 
 and converted yachts, mine-sweepers on their 
 beneficent and hazardous duty, were equally active. 
 Naval aviators cooperated with the British to 
 patrol the coasts in search of submarines. Late in 
 1917, six battleships were sent to join the British 
 Grand Fleet, which was watching for the Germans 
 
200 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 in the North Sea, thus constituting about twelve 
 per cent of the guarding naval force. More impor 
 tant, perhaps, was the American plan for laying a 
 mine barrage from the Scotch coast across to Nor 
 wegian waters. The Ordnance Bureau of the navy, 
 despite the discouragement of British experts, 
 manufactured the mines, 100,000 of them, and 
 shipped them abroad in parts ready for final as 
 sembling. The American navy was responsible 
 for eighty per cent of the laying of the barrage, 
 which when finished was 245 miles long and twenty 
 miles wide. The complete story of the achieve 
 ments of the navy cannot now be told in detail. 
 It was not always inspiring, for numerous mistakes 
 were made. Confusion of counsels in the Naval 
 Board left one important bombing squadron so 
 bereft of supplies that after an expenditure of four 
 millions only two bombs were dropped in the en 
 tire course of its operations. But there are also 
 to be remembered the unheralded stories of hero 
 ism and skill, such as the dash of the submarine- 
 chasers and destroyers through the mine fields at 
 Durazzo, and the work of our naval guns in the 
 attack on Zeebrugge. 
 
 The armies, safely brought to France, were 
 meanwhile undergoing the essential intensive 
 
THE FIGHTING FRONT 201 
 
 training, and the task of organizing the service of 
 supply was being undertaken. The training given 
 in the United States before sailing had been in the 
 ordinary forms of drill and tactics; now it was 
 necessary that there should be greater specializa 
 tion. Numerous schools for the training of officers 
 were established. For the troops the plan for 
 training allowed, according to the intent of General 
 Pershing, "a division one month for acclimatiza 
 tion and instruction in small units from battalions 
 down, a second month in quiet trench sectors by 
 battalion, and a third month after it came out of 
 the trenches when it should be trained as a com 
 plete division in war of movement." 1 The entire 
 process of training was a compromise between 
 speed and efficiency. During the latter months of 
 the war many of the American troops were put on 
 the battle-line when they were by no means suffi 
 ciently trained. Certain draft units were trans 
 ported and thrown up to the front after experience 
 of a most superficial character; there are instances 
 of men going into action without knowing how to 
 load their rifles or adjust their gas masks properly. 
 But en the whole the training given was surprisingly 
 
 1 This plan could not be fulfilled for troops coming to France in 
 1918, because of lack of time. 
 
202 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 effective in view of the speed with which it was 
 accomplished. American skill with the rifle won 
 the envy of foreign officers, and the value of 
 American troops in open warfare was soon to be 
 acknowledged by the Germans. 
 
 The same sort of centralization sought by Wilson 
 in America obviously became necessary in France 
 with the expanding plans for an enormous army. 
 In February, 1918, the Service of Supply was or 
 ganized. With its headquarters at Tours, the 
 S. O. S. was responsible for securing, organizing, 
 and distributing all the food, equipment, building 
 materials, and other necessities demanded by the 
 expeditionary force. In order to provide for the 
 quantities of essential supplies and to avoid the 
 congestion of the chief ports of France, certain 
 ports were especially allotted to our army, of which 
 the most important were St. Nazaire, Bordeaux, 
 and Brest. The first, a somnolent fishing village, 
 was transformed by the energy of American en 
 gineers into a first-class port with enormous docks, 
 warehouses, and supply depots; Brest rose in the 
 space of twelve months from the rank of a second- 
 class port to one that matched Hamburg in the 
 extent of its shipping. In all, more than a dozen 
 ports were used by the Americans and in each 
 
THE FIGHTING FRONT 203 
 
 extensive improvements and enlargements proved 
 necessary. At Bordeaux not more than two ships 
 a week, of any size, could conveniently be unloaded 
 prior to June, 1917. Eight months later, docks a 
 mile long had been constructed, concrete platforms 
 and electric cranes set up; within a year fourteen 
 ships could be unloaded simultaneously, the rate of 
 speed being determined only by the number of 
 stevedores. For unloading purposes regiments of 
 negroes were stationed at each port. 
 
 A few miles back from the coast were the base 
 depots where the materials were stored as they 
 came from the ships. Thence distribution was 
 made to the intermediate depots in the cities of 
 supply, and finally to the depots immediately 
 behind the fighting front. All these depots in 
 volved enormous building operations; at first the 
 lumber was shipped, but later, American lumber 
 jacks were brought over to cut French forests. At 
 one supply depot three hundred buildings were put 
 up, covering an area of six square miles, operated 
 by 20,000 men, and holding in storage a hundred 
 million dollars worth of supplies. For distribution 
 purposes it proved necessary for American en 
 gineers to take over the construction and main 
 tenance of communications. At first American 
 
204 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 engines and cars were operated under French 
 supervision; but ultimately many miles of French 
 railroads were taken over bodily by the American 
 army and many more built by American engineers. 
 More than 400 miles of inland waterways were also 
 used by American armies. This transportation 
 system was operated by American experts of all 
 grades from brakemen to railroad presidents, 
 numbering altogether more than 70,000. 
 
 In order to meet the difficulty of securing ton 
 nage for supplies and to avoid competition with 
 the Allies, a General Purchasing Board was created 
 for the coordination of all purchases. Agents of 
 this board were stationed in the Allied countries, 
 in Switzerland, Holland, and Spain, who recon- 
 noitered resources, analyzed requirements, issued 
 forecasts of supplies, supervised the claims of 
 foreign governments on American raw materials, 
 and procured civilian manual labor. Following the 
 establishment of the supreme interallied command, 
 the Interallied Board of Supplies was organized 
 in the summer of 1918, with the American purchas 
 ing agent as a member. Other activities of the 
 S. O. S., too numerous to recount in detail, in 
 cluded such important tasks as the reclassification 
 of personnel, the installation and operation of a 
 
THE FIGHTING FRONT 205 
 
 general service of telephone and telegraph com 
 munication, with 115,500 kilometers of lines, and 
 the renting and requisitioning of the land and 
 buildings needed by the armies. It was a gigan 
 tic business undertaking, organized at top speed, 
 involving tremendous expenditure. Its success 
 would have been impossible without the coopera 
 tion of hundreds of men of business, who found in 
 it a sphere of service which enabled the army to 
 utilize the proverbial American genius for meeting 
 large problems of economic organization. At the 
 time of the armistice the S. O. S. reached a numeri 
 cal strength in personnel of 668,000, including 
 23,000 civilian employees. 
 
 From the first, Pershing had been determined 
 that the American Expeditionary Force should 
 ultimately operate as an independent unit, al 
 though in close cooperation with the Allies. Dur 
 ing the autumn of 1917 the disasters in Italy and 
 the military demoralization of Russia had led to 
 the formation of the Supreme Military Council of 
 the Allies, upon which the United States was rep 
 resented by General Tasker Bliss, whose rough 
 visage and gruff manner gave little indication of 
 his wide interests. Few suspected that this sol 
 dierly character took secret pleasure in the reading 
 
206 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 of Latin poets. The coordination that resulted 
 from the creation of the Supreme Council, however, 
 proved insufficient to meet the crisis of the spring 
 of 1918. 
 
 On the 21st of March, the Germans attacked in 
 overwhelming force the southern extremity of the 
 British lines, near where they joined the French, 
 and disastrously defeated General Gough s army. 
 The break-through was clean and the advance made 
 by the endless waves of German shock-troops 
 appalling. Within eight days the enemy had 
 swept forward to a depth of fifty-six kilometers, 
 threatening the capture of Amiens and the separa 
 tion of the French and British. As the initial 
 momentum of the onslaught was lost, the Allied 
 line was re-formed with the help of French reserves 
 under Fayolle. But the Allies had been and still 
 were close to disaster. Complete unity of com 
 mand was essential. It was plain also, in the words 
 of Pershing s report, that because of the inroads 
 made upon British and French reserves, "defeat 
 stared them in the face unless the new American 
 troops should prove more immediately available 
 than even the most optimistic had dared to hope." 
 The first necessity was satisfied early in April. 
 The extremity of the danger reinforced the demand 
 
THE FIGHTING FRONT 207 
 
 long made by the French, and supported by Presi 
 dent Wilson through Colonel House, that a gen 
 eralissimo be appointed. The British finally sank 
 their objection, and on the 28th of March it was 
 agreed that General Ferdinand Foch should be 
 made commander-in-chief of all the Allied armies 
 with the powers necessary for the strategic direc 
 tion of all military operations. The decision was 
 ratified on the 3d and approved by President 
 Wilson on the 16th of April. 
 
 General Foch had long been recognized as an 
 eminent student of strategy, and he had proved his 
 practical capacity in 1914 and later. It was he 
 who commanded the French army that broke the 
 German line at the marshes of St. Gond, in the 
 battle of the Marne, thus assuring victory to Joffre, 
 and he had later in the year secured fresh laurels 
 in the first battle of the Yser. At the moment of 
 extreme danger to Italy, after Caporetto, in 1917, 
 he had been chosen to command the assisting force 
 sent down by the French. Unsentimental and un 
 swayed by political factors, he was temperamen 
 tally and intellectually the ideal man for the post 
 of supreme Allied commander; he was furthermore 
 supported by the capacity of General Petain, the 
 French commander-in-chief, and by a remarkable 
 
208 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 group of army commanders, among whom Fayolle, 
 Mangin, and Gouraud were to win particular fame. 
 But he lacked troops, the Germans disposing of 
 200 divisions as against 162 Allied divisions. 
 
 Hence the hurry call sent to America and hence 
 the heavy sacrifice now forced upon Pershing. 
 Much against his will and only as a result of ex 
 treme pressure, the American commander-in-chief 
 agreed to a temporary continuance of the brigading 
 of American troops with the British and the French. 
 He had felt all along that "there was every reason 
 why we could not allow them to be scattered among 
 our Allies, even by divisions, much less as replace 
 ments, except by pressure of pure necessity." He 
 disliked the emphasis placed by the Allies upon 
 training for trench warfare; he feared the effect of 
 the lack of homogeneity which would render the 
 mixed divisions "difficult to maneuver and almost 
 certain to break up under the stress of defeat," 
 and he believed that the creation of independent 
 American armies "would be a severe blow to Ger 
 man morale." When the pinch of necessity came, 
 however, Pershing sank his objections to amalga 
 mation and, to his credit, agreed with a beau geste 
 and fine phrase which concealed the differences 
 between the Allied chiefs and won the heartiest 
 
THE FIGHTING FRONT 209 
 
 sympathy from France and England. The prin 
 ciple of an independent American force, however, 
 Pershing insisted upon, and he made clear that the 
 amalgamation of our troops with the French and 
 British was merely a temporary expedient. 
 
 Immediately after the stabilization of the battle- 
 line near Amiens, the Germans began their second 
 great drive, this time against the British along the 
 Lys, in Flanders. The initial success of the attack, 
 which began on the 9th of April, was undeniable, 
 and Sir Douglas Haig himself admitted the danger 
 of the moment: "Every position must be held to 
 the last man. There must be no retirement. With 
 our backs to the wall and believing in the justice 
 of our cause, each one of us must fight to the end. 
 The safety of our homes and the freedom of man 
 kind depend alike upon the conduct of each one 
 of us at this critical moment." The value of Al 
 lied unity of command now became apparent, for 
 heavy French reinforcements were brought up in 
 time to help stave off the German drive on the 
 Channel Ports. 
 
 But still the demand went up for more men and 
 ships. "Scrap before shipping every pound that 
 takes tonnage and is not necessary to the killing 
 of Germans," wrote a French military authority 
 
210 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 "Send the most infantry by the shortest route to 
 the hottest corner. No matter what flag they 
 fight under, so long as it is an Allied flag." On the 
 27th of May the Germans caught Foch by surprise 
 and launched a violent attack on the Chemin des 
 Dames, between Soissons and Berry-au-Bac. This 
 formed the third phase of their great offensive. In 
 four days they pushed before them the tired French 
 divisions, sent into that sector to recuperate, a dis 
 tance of fifty kilometers and reached the Marne. 
 Again, as in 1914, Paris began to empty, fearful of 
 capture. A statement sent to Wilson on the 2d of 
 June and signed by Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and 
 Orlando, read as follows : " There is great danger of 
 the war being lost unless the numerical inferiority 
 of the Allies can be remedied as rapidly as possible 
 by the advent of American troops. . . . We are 
 satisfied that General Foch ... is not over-esti 
 mating the needs of the case." Such was the peril 
 of the Allies. But in the month of May 245,000 
 Americans had been landed, and in the following 
 month there were to be 278,000 more. 
 
 Previous to June, 1918, the participation of 
 American troops in military operations had been 
 of comparative unimportance and less for tacti 
 cal purposes than as a part of their training. In 
 
THE FIGHTING FRONT 
 
 October, 1917, the First Division had been sent 
 into trenches on the quiet Lorraine front and had 
 engaged in raids and counter-raids. Three other 
 divisions, the Second, the Forty-second, or "Rain 
 bow," and the Twenty-sixth from New England, 
 followed, and by March, 1918, they were all de 
 scribed by Pershing as "equal to any demands of 
 battle action." On the 29th of April, the last- 
 named division was engaged in something more 
 serious than a mere raid at Seicheprey, near St. 
 Mihiel; the number of prisoners lost indicated lack 
 of experience, but the vigor of the American coun 
 ter-attack proved definitely the will to fight. That 
 belligerent spirit was equally displayed by various 
 engineering units which, during the break of Gen 
 eral Gough s army before the German assault of 
 March, near St. Quentin, had dropped their tools, 
 seized rifles, and, hastily organizing to cover the 
 retreat, had secured valuable respite for various 
 fleeing units. 
 
 More important yet, because of the moral effect 
 achieved, was the engagement at Cantigny near 
 Montdidier, on the 28th of May. The Americans 
 launched their attack with skill as well as dash, and 
 stood firm against the violence of the German re 
 action; this they met without assistance from the 
 
212 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 French, who had been called to oppose the German 
 advance on the Marne. Pershing spoke of the 
 "desperate efforts" of the enemy at Cantigny, 
 "determined at all costs to counteract the most 
 excellent effect the American success had pro 
 duced." For three days guns of all calibers were 
 vainly concentrated upon the new positions. 
 Coming at the moment of extreme discouragement, 
 Cantigny was of an importance entirely out of pro 
 portion to the numbers involved. For months 
 France had been awaiting American assistance. 
 A year before the French had seen Pershing and 
 the first few doughboys, but the long delay had 
 caused them to lose the confidence which that sight 
 had aroused. Now suddenly came the news that 
 the Americans were arriving in tremendous num 
 bers and from Cantigny, north and south along the 
 lines, spread the report: "These men will fight." 
 
 Four days later at Chateau-Thierry, I Americans 
 proved not merely the moral but the practical 
 value of their assistance. The German drive of the 
 27th of May, beginning on the Chemin des Dames, 
 had pushed south to the Marne and westward 
 
 1 The reader should distinguish the defensive operations at 
 Chateau-Thierry, on the 1st of June, from the attack launched 
 from this sector in July. Both are known as the battle of Chateau- 
 Thierry. 
 
THE FIGHTING FRONT 213 
 
 towards Meaux. The French falling back in haste 
 had maintained their lines intact, but were pessi 
 mistic as to the possibility of stopping the enemy 
 advance. On the 31st of May, German vanguard 
 units entered Chateau-Thierry, crossed the river, 
 and planned to secure the bridges. At this moment 
 American machine gunners of the Third Division 
 came up with a battalion of French colonials in 
 support, drove the Germans back to the north 
 bank, covered the retreat of the French forces 
 across the Marne, on the following day, and gave 
 time to blow up the bridges. On the same day, the 
 1st of June, northwest of Chateau-Thierry, the 
 Second Division came into line to support the 
 wearied French, and as the latter came filtering 
 back and through, soon found itself meeting direct 
 German assaults. Stretching across the road to 
 Paris, with the French too weak to make a stand, 
 it blocked the German advance. Even so, the 
 danger was not entirely parried, since the enemy 
 held strong positions from Vaux northwest to 
 Veuilly, which, when German reinforcements came 
 up, would enable them to deliver deadly assaults. 
 Those positions had to be taken. From the 6th to 
 the llth of June, American troops, among them 
 marine regiments, struck viciously, concentrating 
 
214 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 against the railroad embankment atBouresches and 
 the hill of Belleau Woods. The stiffness of the Ger 
 man defense, maintained by their best troops, was 
 overcome by fearless rushing of machine-gun nests, 
 ruthless mopping-up of isolated stragglers, and a 
 final clearing of the Woods by heavy artillery fire. 
 On the 18th of June the Americans took the ap 
 proaches to Torcy and on the 1st of July the village 
 of Vaux. If the attack on Belleau Woods proved 
 their courage, the capture of Vaux vindicated their 
 skill, for losses were negligible. 
 
 The Allied line was now in a position to contest 
 actively any deepening of the Marne salient to the 
 west, and American troops had so clearly proved 
 their quality that Pershing could with justice de 
 mand a radical revision of the Allied opinion that 
 American soldiers were fit only for the defense. 
 His confidence in their fighting capacity was soon 
 further put to the test and vindicated. On the 
 15th of July the Germans opened the fourth and 
 last of their great drives, with tremendous artillery 
 fire from Rheims to the Marne. They hoped to 
 capture the former, swing far to the south and west, 
 and, if they failed to take Paris, at least to draw 
 sufficient troops from Flanders and Picardy as to 
 assure a successful drive on Amiens and the Channel 
 
THE FIGHTING FRONT 
 
 Ports. For the first time, however, the element 
 of surprise in their attack was lacking. At the 
 eastern end of the battle-line General Gouraud, 
 with whom were fighting the Forty-second Division 
 and four colored regiments, warned of the moment 
 of attack, withdrew his front lines and permitted 
 the Germans to shell empty trenches; all important 
 positions he held firmly. On the Marne, east of 
 Chateau-Thierry, the enemy succeeded in crossing 
 the river in the early morning. At various points 
 the American line was compelled to yield, although 
 one of the American regiments stood its ground 
 while on either flank the Germans, who had gained 
 a footing on the south bank, pressed forward; it 
 was, according to Pershing s report, "one of the 
 most brilliant pages in our military annals." At 
 noon, heedless of the warning given by the French 
 commander, American reinforcements launched a 
 strong counter-attack and drove the enemy back 
 to the river; on the next morning no Germans were 
 to be found on the south bank in front of the 
 American troops. During the next two days Ger 
 man efforts to press forward were unrelaxing but 
 in vain, and on the 18th of July, Foch launched his 
 counter-offensive. 
 The inherent weakness of the Marne salient from 
 
216 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 the German point of view and the opportunity 
 which it offered the Allied command had not been 
 forgotten by the generalissimo. Foch waited until 
 the enemy had spent his strength in the attacks 
 around Rheims and on the Marne, then struck 
 fiercely between Soissons and Chateau-Thierry. 
 The spearhead of the main drive was composed of 
 the First and Second American Divisions, im 
 mediately to the south of Soissons, who were 
 operating under Mangin with the First French 
 Moroccan Division between them. Straightway, 
 without the orthodox preliminary artillery fire, a 
 deep thrust was made against the western side of 
 the salient; near Soissons, despite fierce resistance, 
 advances of from eight to ten kilometers and large 
 numbers of prisoners were reported in the first 
 twenty -four hours. "Due to the magnificent dash 
 and powers displayed on the field of Soissons by 
 our First and Second Divisions," said Pershing, 
 "the tide of war was definitely turned in favor of 
 the Allies." Further to the south, the Fourth and 
 Twenty-sixth Divisions crossed the road running 
 from Chateau-Thierry to Soissons, pushing east; 
 while from the southern bank of the Marne, the 
 Third Division pushed north across the river. It 
 was obvious to the Germans that retreat from the 
 
THE FIGHTING FRONT 217 
 
 perilous salient must proceed at once, especially as 
 Franco -British counter-attacks on the eastern side 
 threatened to close it at the neck and cut the main 
 line of German withdrawal. The retreat was exe 
 cuted with great skill and valor. While holding on 
 the sides, the enemy forces were slowly pulled back 
 from the apex, striving to win time to save artillery, 
 although they must perforce lose or destroy great 
 quantities of ammunition. Against the retreating 
 foe fresh American divisions were hurled. On the 
 25th of July the Forty-second division relieved the 
 Twenty-sixth, advancing toward the Vesle, with 
 elements of the Twenty-eighth, until relieved on 
 August 3d, by the Fourth Division. Farther east 
 the Thirty-second had relieved the Third. The 
 Americans had to face withering fire from machine- 
 gun nests and fight hand to hand in the crumbled 
 streets of the Champagne villages. Here were car 
 ried on some of the fiercest conflicts of American 
 military history. Finally on the 6th of August the 
 Germans reached the line of the Vesle, their retreat 
 secured, although their losses had been terrific. 
 But the pause was only momentary. Before 
 they could bring up replacements, the British 
 launched their great drive south of the Somme, 
 the American Twenty-eighth, Thirty-second, and 
 
218 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Seventy-seventh divisions crossed the Vesle push 
 ing the Germans before them, and there began what 
 Ludendorff in his memoirs calls "the last phase." 
 Pershing had not lost sight of his original object, 
 which was to assemble the American divisions into 
 a separate army. After the victories of July, which 
 wiped out the Marne salient, and those of August, 
 which put the enemy definitely on the defensive, he 
 felt that "the emergency which had justified the 
 dispersion of our divisions had passed." Soon 
 after the successful British attack, south of Amiens, 
 he overcame the objections of Foch and concluded 
 arrangements for the organization of this army, 
 which was to operate in the Lorraine sector. 1 It 
 contained 600,000 men, fourteen American divi 
 sions and two French. On the 30th of August the 
 sector was established and preparations made for 
 the offensive, the first step in which was to be the 
 wiping out of the St. Mihiel salient. This salient 
 had existed since 1914, when the Germans, failing 
 to storm the scarp protecting Verdun on the east, 
 had driven a wedge across the lower heights to the 
 south. The elimination of this wedge would have 
 
 1 Allied opposition to an American army was so strong as to 
 bring threats of an appeal to Wilson. The President steadfastly 
 supported Pershing. 
 
THE FIGHTING FRONT 219 
 
 great moral effect; it would free the Paris-Nancy 
 railway from artillery fire; and would assure Per- 
 shing an excellent base for attack against the Metz- 
 Sedan railway system and the Briey iron basin. 
 The German positions were naturally strong and had 
 withstood violent French attacks in 1915. But 
 there was only one effective line of retreat and the 
 enemy, if he persisted in holding the apex of the sa 
 lient, risked losing his entire defending force, should 
 the sides be pressed in from the south and west. 
 
 On the 12th of September the attack was 
 launched. It was originally planned for the 15th, 
 but word was brought that the Germans were 
 about to retire at a rate which would have left 
 none of them in the salient by that date. Hence 
 the attack was advanced by three days. The at 
 tempted withdrawal secured the retreat of the 
 German main force, but they were unable to save 
 their rear guard. After four hours of vigorous 
 artillery preparation, with the largest assemblage 
 of aviation ever engaged in a single operation 
 (mainly British and French) and with American 
 heavy guns throwing into confusion all rail move 
 ments behind the German lines, the advancing 
 Americans immediately overwhelmed all of the 
 enemy that attempted to hold their ground. By 
 
220 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 the afternoon of the second day the salient was 
 extinguished, 16,000 prisoners were taken, 443 
 guns and large stores of supplies captured. Ameri 
 can casualties totaled less than 7000. The effects 
 of the victory were incalculable. Apart from the 
 material results, hope of which had motivated the 
 attack, the moral influence of the battle of St. 
 Mihiel in the making of American armies and the 
 discouragement of the German High Command 
 was of the first importance. "An American army 
 was an accomplished fact," wrote Pershing, "and 
 the enemy had felt its power. No form of propa 
 ganda could overcome the depressing effect on the 
 morale of the enemy of this demonstration of our 
 ability to organize a large American force and drive 
 it successfully through his defense. It gave our 
 troops implicit confidence in their superiority and 
 raised their morale to the highest pitch. For the 
 first time wire entanglements ceased to be regarded 
 as impassable barriers and open-warfare training, 
 which had been so urgently insisted upon, proved 
 to be the correct doctrine." 
 
 The victory of St. Mihiel was merely the neces 
 sary prelude to greater things. During the first 
 week of September the Allied command decided 
 that the general offensive movement of their armies 
 
THE FIGHTING FRONT 221 
 
 should be pressed as rapidly as possible, converging 
 upon the main line of German retreat through 
 Mezieres and Sedan. The British were to pursue 
 the attack in the direction of Cambrai, the center 
 of the French armies, west of Rheims, was to drive 
 the enemy beyond the Aisne, while the Americans 
 were to attack through the Argonne and on both 
 sides of the Meuse, aiming for Sedan. Pershing 
 was given his choice of the Champagne or Argonne 
 sectors, and chose the latter, which was the more 
 difficult, insisting that no other Allied troops 
 possessed the offensive spirit which would be neces 
 sary for success. In the meantime a new American 
 army was to be organized, to operate south of 
 Verdun and against Metz, in the spring of 1919; 
 in fact this was designed to be the chief American 
 effort. As matters turned out this second Ameri 
 can army was ready to make its offensive early in 
 No\*ember, but in September none of the Allied 
 chiefs expressed the opinion that the final victory 
 could be achieved in 1918. Such were the difficul 
 ties of terrain in the Argonne advance that the 
 French did not believe that the attack could 
 be pushed much beyond Montfaucon, between 
 the forest and the Meuse, before winter forced a 
 cessation of active operations. 
 
222 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 The defensive importance of the Argonne for the 
 Germans could hardly be overestimated, for if the 
 railway line running through Sedan and Mezieres 
 were severed, they would be cut in two by the 
 Ardennes and would be unable to withdraw from 
 France the bulk of their forces, which, left without 
 supplies, would suffer inevitable disaster. As a 
 consequence the Argonne had been strengthened 
 by elaborate fortifications which, taken in conjunc 
 tion with the natural terrain, densely wooded, 
 covered with rugged heights, and marked by ridges 
 running east and west, made it apparently im 
 pregnable. The dense undergrowth, the bowlders, 
 and the ravines offered ideal spots for machine- 
 gun nests. The Germans had the exact range of 
 each important position. 
 
 But Pershing s confidence in the offensive valor 
 of the Americans was amply justified. On the 
 morning of the 26th of September the initial attack 
 was delivered, the main force of the blow falling east 
 of the forest, where the natural strength of the ene 
 my positions was less formidable. By noon of the 
 second day Montfaucon was captured, and by the 
 59th all the immediate objectives of the attack were 
 secured. Losses were heavy, staff work was fre 
 quently open to severe criticism, communications 
 
THE FIGHTING FRONT 223 
 
 were broken at times, the infantry had not al 
 ways received adequate artillery support, but the 
 success of the drive was undeniable. Before the 
 American troops, however, still lay two more lines 
 of defense, the Freya and Kriemhilde, and the 
 Germans were bringing up their best divisions. 
 On the 4th of October the attack was renewed, in 
 cooperation with the French under Gouraud to 
 the west of the forest who pressed forward actively; 
 a week s more bitter fighting saw the Argonne itself 
 cleared of the enemy. Hard struggles ensued, 
 particularly around Grandpre, which was taken 
 and retaken, while on the east of the Meuse the 
 enemy was pushed back. By the end of the month 
 the Kriemhilde line had been broken and the great 
 railway artery was threatened. On the 1st of 
 November the third phase of the great advance 
 began. The desperate efforts of the Germans to 
 hold were never relaxed, but by the evening of that 
 day the American troops broke through their last 
 defense and forced rapid retreat. Motor trucks 
 were hurriedly brought up for the pursuit, and by 
 the fifth the enemy s withdrawal became general. 
 Two days later Americans held the heights which 
 dominated Sedan, the strategic goal, and the Ger 
 man line of communications was as good as severed. 
 
224 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 The converging offensive planned by Foch had 
 succeeded. At Cambrai, Le Catelet, and St. Quen- 
 tin, the British, with whom were operating four 
 American divisions (the Twenty-seventh, Thirtieth, 
 Thirty-seventh, and Ninety-first), had broken the 
 Hindenburg line; the French had pushed the Ger 
 mans back from Laon, north of the Aisne, and with 
 the British were driving them into the narrow 
 neck of the bottle; and now the French and Ameri 
 cans, by their Argonne-Meuse advance had closed 
 the neck. The enemy faced an appalling disaster. 
 A few weeks, if not days, of continued fighting 
 meant the most striking military debacle of his 
 tory. Germany s alliss hr.d fallen from her. Tur 
 key, Bulgaria, and Austria-Hungary had sued for 
 peace and agreed to cease fighting on what amount 
 ed to terms of unconditional surrender. At home, 
 the German Government faced revolution; the Kai 
 ser was about to abdicate and flee. On the 6th of 
 November, the Berlin Government begged for an 
 immediate armistice and five days later agreed to 
 the stringent terms which the Allies presented. On 
 the llth of November, at eleven in the morning, 
 firing ceased. Until the last second the battle raged 
 with a useless intensity dictated by stern military 
 tradition; then perfect quiet on the battle front. 
 
THE FIGHTING FRONT 225 
 
 At the present moment we lack the perspective, 
 perhaps, to evaluate exactly the share of credit 
 which the American Expeditionary Force deserves 
 for the Allied military victory of 1918. Previous to 
 June the military contribution of the United States 
 had no material effects. The defense of Chateau- 
 Thierry at the beginning of the month and the 
 operations there and at Belleau Woods had, how 
 ever, important practical as well as moral effects. 
 The fighting was of a purely local character, but it 
 came at a critical moment and at a critical spot. 
 It was a crisis when the importance of standing 
 firm could not be overestimated, and the defensive 
 capacity of the French had been seriously weak 
 ened. The advance of American divisions with the 
 French in the clearing of the Marne sector was 
 of the first military importance. The Americans 
 were better qualified than any European troops, 
 at that stage of the war, to carry through offensive 
 operations. They were fearless not merely because 
 of natural hardihood, but through ignorance of 
 danger; they were fresh and undefeated, physically 
 and morally capable of undergoing the gruelling 
 punishment delivered by the rearguards of the re 
 treating Germans; their training had been pri 
 marily for open warfare. The same qualities were 
 
26 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 essential for the arduous and deadly task of break 
 ing the German line in the Argonne, which was the 
 finishing blow on the western battlefields. 
 
 The defects of the American armies have been 
 emphasized by European experts. They point 
 especially to the faulty staff- work, apparent in the 
 Argonne particularly, which resulted in heavy 
 losses. Staff-officers in numerous instances seem 
 to have been ill-trained and at times positively 
 unequal to the exigencies of the campaign. Mis 
 takes in selection account for this to some degree, 
 for men were appointed who were not equipped 
 temperamentally or intellectually for the positions 
 given them. Equally frequent were mistakes in 
 the distribution of staff-officers. It is a notable 
 fact, however, that such mistakes resulted from 
 inexperience and ignorance and not from the in 
 trusion of politics. President Wilson guaranteed 
 to General Pershing complete immunity from the 
 pleas of politicians and in no war fought by the 
 United States have political factors played a role 
 of such insignificance. 
 
 Finally, and aside from the fighting qualities of 
 the rank and file and certain defects of the higher 
 command, the Americans represented numbers; 
 and without the tremendous numerical force 
 
THE FIGHTING FRONT 227 
 
 transported to Europe in the spring and summer. 
 the plans of Foch could not have been completed. 
 We have the testimony of the Allied chiefs in June 
 that without American man-power they faced de 
 feat. It is equally obvious that without the 
 1,390,000 American troops which, by November, 
 had appeared on the fighting lire, the autumn 
 of 1918 would not have witnessed the military 
 triumph of the Allies. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE PATH TO PEACE 
 
 THE armistice of November 11, 1918, resulted 
 directly from the military defeat of German armies 
 in France, following upon the collapse of Turkey, 
 Bulgaria, and Austria-Hungary. But there were 
 many circumstances other than military that led to 
 Germany s downfall, and by no means of least 
 importance were the moral issues so constantly 
 stressed by Wilson. His speeches had been care 
 fully distributed through the Central Empires; 
 they had done much to arouse the subject peoples 
 of Austria-Hungary to revolt for their freedom, and 
 also to weaken the morale of the German people. 
 The value of Wilson s "verbiage drives" was ques 
 tioned in this country. Abroad, his insistence 
 upon a peace of justice was generally reckoned a 
 vital moral force in the political movements that 
 supplemented the victories of Marshal Foch. Jugo 
 slavs consented to cooperate with their Italian 
 
 228 
 
THE PATH TO PEACE 229 
 
 enemies because they felt that "Wilson s justice" 
 would guarantee a fair court for their aspirations 
 in the Adriatic; Magyars and Austrians threw 
 down their arms in the belief that his promise to 
 "be as just to enemies as to friends" secured a 
 better future than they could hope for through the 
 continuance of the war; the leaders of the German 
 Reichstag demanded the Kaiser s abdication in 
 November, under the impression that Wilson had 
 laid it down as a condition of peace. 
 
 From the time when the United States entered 
 the war it was obvious that Wilson placed less 
 emphasis upon defeating Germany than upon se 
 curing a just peace. Military victory meant noth 
 ing to him except as the road to peace. In his 
 first war speeches the President, much to the irrita 
 tion of many Americans, insisted that the United 
 States was fighting the government and not the 
 people of Germany. "We have no quarrel," he 
 said, " with the German people. We have no feel 
 ing towards them but one of sympathy and friend 
 ship." In his Flag Day address he was careful 
 not to attack "Germany" but only "the mili 
 tary masters under whom Germany is bleeding." 
 Certain effects of this attitude were to be seen in 
 the Reichstag revolt of July, 1917, led by that most 
 
230 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 sensitive of political weathercocks, Matthias Erz- 
 berger, which was designed to take political control 
 out of the hands of the military clique. That crisis, 
 however, was safely survived by Ludendorff, who 
 remained supreme. President Wilson then re 
 turned to the attack in his reply to the Pope s 
 peace proposals of August. "The object of this 
 war is to deliver the free peoples of the world from 
 the menace and the actual power of a vast military 
 establishment controlled by an irresponsible gov 
 ernment. . . . This power is not the German 
 people. It is the ruthless master of the German 
 people. . . . We cannot take the word of the 
 present rulers of Germany as a guarantee of any 
 thing that is to endure, unless explicitly support 
 ed by such conclusive evidence of the will and 
 purpose of the German people themseves as the 
 other peoples of the world would be justified 
 in accepting." 
 
 There was serpentine wisdom in these words, 
 for their very vagueness attracted German liberals. 
 Wilson did not demand a republic; he did not in 
 sist upon the Kaiser s abdication, for which Ger 
 many was not then prepared; all that he asked 
 was a government responsible to the people, and 
 more and more the Germans were demanding that 
 
THE PATH TO PEACE 331 
 
 themselves. Furthermore, he again laid stress 
 upon the fact that the Germans need not fear 
 vengeance such as the Allies had threatened. 
 " Punitive damages, the dismemberment of em 
 pires, the establishment of selfish and exclusive 
 economic leagues, we deem inexpedient." The 
 appeal was fruitless hi its immediate effects, for 
 the political party leaders were still dominated by 
 the military; but ultimately, in conjunction with 
 a dozen other appeals, its influence acted like a 
 subtle corrosive upon the German will to conquer. 
 Still less successful were the attempts to win 
 Austria away from her ally by secret diplomatic 
 conversations. In these neither President Wilson 
 nor his personal adviser, Colonel House, placed 
 great confadence. They had been undertaken by 
 the French through Prince Sixtus of Bourbon, and 
 in August, 1917, Maior Armand of France dis 
 cussed with the Austrian emissary, Revertata, 
 possible means of bringing about peace between 
 Austria and the Allies. Lloyd George enthusias 
 tically approved this attempt to drive a wedge 
 betv/een Austria and Germany, was anxious to 
 send Lord Reading as intermediary, and, upon the 
 refusal of the latter to undertake the mission, 
 actually dispatched General Smuts to Switzerland* 
 
232 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 The Emperor Carl seemed sincerely anxious to 
 make sacrifices for peace and was urged by lib 
 eral counselors, such as Forster and Lammasch, 
 in whom the Allies had confidence, to meet many 
 of the demands of his discontented Slav subjects 
 by granting autonomy to the Czechs, Poles, and 
 Jugoslavs. Negotiations were hampered by the 
 belief of the Italians that immediate peace with 
 Austria would prevent them from securing the ter 
 ritories they coveted; by the sullen obstinacy of 
 the Magyars, who were jealous of their mastery 
 over the Hungarian Slavs, and above all, as Colonel 
 House had foreseen, by Austria s fear of Germany. 
 In fact it was a stern ultimatum sent by Luden- 
 dorff that brought the wavering Carl back to 
 his allegiance. 
 
 In the autumn of 1917, however, talk of peace was 
 in the air and a definite demand for its considera 
 tion was made in a noteworthy speech by Lord 
 Lansdowne, a Conservative leader in England. 
 Negotiations were inaugurated between Germany 
 and the new Bolshevik Government of Russia, and 
 for a few weeks at the beginning of the new year 
 the w ar-weary world seemed close to the possibility 
 of a general understanding. For the first time 
 Lloyd George outlined in specific language the 
 
THE PATH TO PEACE 233 
 
 main terms that would be considered by the Allies. 
 It was President Wilson s opportunity. Careless of 
 securing an overwhelming military victory, indeed 
 unwilling to crush Germany, anxious to pledge the 
 Entente to his programme in this moment of their 
 discouragement, he formulated on January 8, 1918, 
 his Fourteen Points, upon which he declared the 
 final peace settlement should be based. His speech 
 was at once an appeal to the liberals and peace- 
 hungry of the Central Empires, a warning to the 
 military clique in Germany then preparing to en 
 force degrading terms upon Russia, and a notifica 
 tion to the Allies that the United States could not 
 be counted upon to fight for selfish national in 
 terests. He reiterated the principles which had 
 actuated the United States when it entered the 
 war: "What we demand in this war, therefore, is 
 nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world 
 be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly 
 that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation 
 which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, 
 determine its own institutions, be assured of jus 
 tice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the 
 world as against force and selfish aggression. All 
 the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this 
 interest, and for our own part we see very clearly 
 
234 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 that unless justice be done to others it will not be 
 done to us." 
 
 Of the Fourteen Points into which he then 
 divided his peace programme, the first five were 
 general in nature. The first insisted upon open 
 diplomacy, to begin with the approaching Peace 
 Conference: "Open covenants of peace, openly 
 arrived at, after which there shall be no private 
 international understandings of any kind." Next 
 came "absolute freedom of navigation upon the 
 seas . . . alike in peace and in war." Then "the 
 removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers 
 and the establishment of an equality of trade con 
 ditions among all the nations consenting to the 
 peace." There followed a demand for the reduc 
 tion of armaments "to the lowest point consistent 
 with domestic safety." The fifth point called for 
 an "impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, 
 based upon . . . the interests of the populations 
 concerned" as well as "the equitable claims of the 
 government whose title is to be determined." 
 
 These generalizations were not so much God- 
 given tables which must determine the inter 
 national law of the future as they were subtle in 
 ducements to cease fighting; they were idealistic 
 in tone, but intensely practical in purpose. They 
 
THE PATH TO PEACE 235 
 
 guaranteed to any Germans who wanted peace 
 that there would be protection against British 
 "navalism," against the threatened Allied eco 
 nomic boycott, as well as a chance of the return of 
 the conquered colonies. The force of their seduc 
 tiveness was proved, when, many months later, in 
 October, 1918, defeated Germany grasped at them 
 as a drowning man at a straw. At the same time 
 Wilson offered to liberals the world over the hope 
 of ending the old-style secret diplomacy, and to 
 business men and labor the termination of the 
 system of competitive armaments, with their 
 economic and moral waste. No one would suggest 
 that Wilson did not believe in the idealism of these 
 first five points; no one should forget, however, 
 that they were carefully drafted with the political 
 situation of the moment definitely in view. They 
 might be construed as a charter for future inter 
 national relations, but they were designed primarily 
 to serve as a diplomatic weapon for the present. 
 
 Each of the succeeding eight points was more 
 special in character, and dealt with the territorial 
 and political problems of the warring states. They 
 provided for the evacuation and restoration of all 
 conquered territories in Europe, including Russia, 
 Belgium, France, and the Balkan States. The 
 
236 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 sovereignty of Belgium should be unlimited in fu 
 ture; the "wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 
 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine . . . should be 
 righted"; Italian frontiers should be readjusted 
 "along clearly recognizable lines of nationality"; 
 the peoples of Austria-Hungary "should be accord 
 ed the freest opportunity of autonomous develop 
 ment"; the relations of the Balkan States should 
 be determined "along historically established 
 lines of allegiance and nationality"; nationalities 
 under Turkish rule should receive opportunity for 
 security of life and autonomous development, and 
 the Dardanelles should be permanently opened to 
 all nations under international guarantees; an 
 independent Polish state should be erected to 
 "include the territories inhabited by indisputably 
 Polish populations, which should be assured a free 
 and secure access to the sea." 
 
 Generally speaking these stipulations seemed to 
 guarantee the moderate war aims of the Entente 
 and corresponded closely to the demands made by 
 Lloyd George; they certainly repudiated the ex 
 treme purposes attributed to German imperialists. 
 And yet these eight points were so vague and ca 
 pable of such diverse interpretation that, like the 
 first five general points, they might prove not 
 
THE PATH TO PEACE 237 
 
 unattractive to liberals in Germany and Austria. 
 France was not definitely promised Alsace-Lor 
 raine; any hint at the dismemberment of Austria- 
 Hungary was carefully avoided; the readjustment 
 of Italian frontiers might mean much or little. 
 What were "historically established lines of alle 
 giance and nationality" in the Balkans? And if 
 Poland were to include only populations "indis 
 putably Polish," was it possible to assure them 
 "free and secure access to the sea"? The political 
 advantage in such generalities was obvious. But 
 there was also great danger. The time might come 
 when both belligerent camps would accept the 
 Fourteen Points and would still be uncertain of 
 their meaning and application. The struggle for 
 definite interpretation would be the real test. The 
 President s fourteenth and last point, however, was 
 unmistakable and expressed the ideal nearest his 
 heart: "A general association of nations must be 
 formed under specific covenants for the purpose of 
 affording mutual guarantees of political independ 
 ence and territorial integrity to great and small 
 states alike." 
 
 Later events have magnified the significance of 
 this notable speech of the 8th of January. It was a 
 striking bid for peace, which indeed was not far 
 
238 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 away and it ultimately formed the general basis of 
 the peace terms actually drafted. But it contained 
 nothing new. Its definition of the conditions of 
 peace was vague; its formulation of principles 
 followed exactly along the lines developed by 
 President Wilson ever since he had adopted the 
 idea of a League of Nations founded upon inter 
 national justice. His summing up of the main 
 principle underlying his whole policy was merely 
 the echo of his speeches for the past twelve-month : 
 "The principle of justice to all peoples and nation 
 alities, and their right to live on equal terms of 
 liberty and safety with one another, whether they 
 be strong or weak." The importance of the speech 
 does not lie in its novelty but in its timeliness. It 
 came at a moment when the world was anxiously 
 listening and the undeniable idealism of its content 
 assured to President Wilson, at least temporarily, 
 the moral leadership of mankind. Unfortunately 
 as the event proved, it promised more than could 
 ever be secured by any single man. The President 
 was to pay the price for his leadership later when 
 he encountered the full force of the reaction. 
 
 As a step toward immediate peace the speech 
 of the Fourteen Points failed. WTiat might have 
 been the result had von Hertling, Chancellor of 
 
THE PATH TO PEACE 239 
 
 Germany, and Czernin, in Austria, possessed full 
 powers, it is difficult to say. But the military 
 masters of Germany could not resist the tempta 
 tion which the surrender of Russia brought before 
 their eyes. By securing the eastern front and re 
 leasing prisoners as well as troops there, they would 
 be able to establish a crushing superiority in the 
 west; France would be annihilated before the Amer 
 ican armies could count, if indeed they were ever 
 raised. Hence the heavy terms of Brest-Litovsk 
 and Bucharest and the preparations for the great 
 drive of March. As Wilson said, "The tragical 
 circumstance is that this one party in Germany is 
 apparently willing and able to send millions of men 
 to their death to prevent what all the world now 
 sees to be just." Thus Germany lost her last chance 
 to emerge from the war uncrushed. 
 
 The ruthless policy followed by Ludendorff and 
 his associates gave the President new opportunities 
 to appeal to the peoples of the Central Empires. 
 He incorporated in his speeches the phrases of 
 the German Socialists. " Self -Determination " and 
 "No annexations and no indemnities " were phrases 
 that had been made in Germany before Russia 
 imported them; and when they formed the text 
 of presidential addresses, many Germans, despite 
 
240 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 themselves, doubtless felt a twinge of sympathy. 
 Coupled with these appeals went the President s 
 warnings that if they persisted in tying up their 
 fortunes with those of their rulers, they must share 
 the penalties. If Germany insisted upon making 
 force alone the deciding element, then he must 
 accept the challenge and abide the issue. "There 
 is, therefore, but one response possible from us: 
 Force, Force to the utmost, Force without stint or 
 limit, the righteous and triumphant Force which 
 shall make Right the law of the world and cast 
 every selfish dominion down in the dust." Neither 
 the appeals nor the warnings of Wilson had any 
 effect apparent at the moment, and yet the seed 
 was sown. During the victorious German drives of 
 March, April, and May, opinion to the east of the 
 Rhine seemed to have rallied firmly behind the 
 Teuton Government; but with the first slight set 
 backs of the following month the process of crum 
 bling began. An American economist and banker, 
 Henry C. Emery, then prisoner in Germany, tells 
 of the pessimism prevalent as early as June and 
 the whispers of the approaching fall of the Kaiser. 
 In his memoirs Ludendorff lays the failure of 
 the German armies in August to the complete 
 breakdown of the national spirit. 
 
THE PATH TO PEACE 241 
 
 The end came with extraordinary speed. Al 
 ready in September, after the defection of Bulgaria 
 and the startling success of Foch s converging 
 movement on Sedan, Germany knew that she was 
 defeated. The Berlin Government turned to Wilson 
 and on the 5th of October requested an armistice. 
 At the same time Austria-Hungary made a similar 
 request offering to negotiate on the basis of the 
 Fourteen Points. Wilson s position was delicate. 
 He knew in September that the end was near 
 and prepared for the situation in some degree by 
 sending Colonel House abroad to be ready to dis 
 cuss armistice terms with the Allies. But the 
 sudden character of the German collapse had in 
 toxicated public opinion to such an extent that the 
 political idealism which he had voiced ran the risk 
 of becoming swamped. If Germany were indeed 
 helpless and the Allies triumphant, there was the 
 danger that, in the flush of victory, all the promises 
 of a just peace would be forgotten. He must 
 provide against such a contingency. On the other 
 hand he must secure guarantees that Germany had 
 indeed thrown off her militaristic cloak, as Prince 
 Max of Baden, the new Chancellor, insisted; and 
 also that under cover of an armistice she might not 
 effect a withdrawal of her defeated armies, only to 
 
 zd 
 
242 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 renew the struggle under more favorable condi 
 tions on her own borders. He was caught between 
 the danger of German fraud and Allied exuberance. 
 There ensued a month of negotiations, during 
 which the military victory of the Allies was further 
 assured, as described in the preceding pages. The 
 German Government was first asked by Wilson if 
 it accepted the Fourteen Points and the similar 
 stipulations made by the President in subsequent 
 addresses. Replying in the affirmative, Prince 
 Max then promised to acquiesce in armistice terms 
 that would leave the military situation unchanged, 
 and further agreed to order a cessation of unre 
 stricted submarine warfare and of the wanton de 
 struction caused by the German armies in their 
 retreat. Finally he declared in answer to Wilson s 
 demand, that the request for an armistice and 
 peace came from a government "which is free from 
 any arbitrary and irresponsible influence, and is 
 supported by the approval of an overwhelming 
 majority of the German people." The President 
 then formally transmitted the correspondence to 
 the Allies, and Colonel House entered upon dis 
 cussions to establish with them the understanding 
 that the basis of the peace negotiations would be 
 the Wilsonian programme. He was successful ; and 
 
THE PATH TO PEACE 243 
 
 the Fourteen Points, with reservation of the sec 
 ond, "Freedom of the seas, " were accepted by the 
 Allied governments. The Allies, on " the other 
 hand, secured President Wilson s approval of the 
 principle that "compensation will be made by 
 Germany for all damage done to the civilian popu 
 lation of the Allies and their property by the ag 
 gression of Germany by land, by sea, and from the 
 air." Upon this understanding the details of the 
 armistice were left to the military leaders. The 
 terms a? fixed reflected the military situation on 
 the fighting front and the political situation in Ger 
 many and placed Germany entirely in the power of 
 the victors without possibility of renewing the war. 
 The conditions laid down were so stringent that un 
 til the last moment a refusal by the German dele 
 gates seemed imminent; but on the llth of Novem 
 ber, just before the expiration of the time limit 
 allowed them, they accepted the inevitable. 
 
 It is a mistake to regard the armistice as forced 
 upon the Allies by President Wilson. Many per 
 sons abroad, as in this country, felt, it is true, that 
 it was wrong to permit the peaceful withdrawal of 
 the German armies, even though the full military 
 advantages of victory were secured by the armis 
 tice conditions; the Allies ought, they argued, to 
 
244 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 impress on the Germans the magnitude of their 
 defeat on the field of battle, and this could not be 
 done so long as German soil had been free from 
 warfare. General Pershing was strongly opposed 
 to the granting of an armistice. The Allied chiefs 
 knew, however, that although the continuation of 
 the fighting would lead to the surrender of a great 
 German force, every day would cost the victorious 
 armies a heavy toll of killed and wounded, and 
 the advantage to be gained thereby was at least 
 questionable. This fact was emphasized even by 
 Marshal Foch. They hesitated, certainly, to ac 
 cept the Fourteen Points as the basis for peace, 
 for they feared lest the interpretation put upon 
 them at the Peace Conference might rob them of 
 what they believed to be the just fruits of victory. 
 In both France and England there was, it is true, 
 a body of liberal opinion which would not brook 
 open repudiation of the ideals that Wilson had 
 sponsored during the war and to which Allied min 
 isters had themselves paid tribute. In each coun 
 try there was another group demanding a "peace of 
 annihilation," with the payment of all war costs 
 by the defeated, but Lloyd George and Clemen- 
 ceau feared at the moment to raise this issue. 
 Both England and France were dependent upon 
 
THE PATH TO PEACE 245 
 
 American assistance for the immediate future 
 as they had been during the war. They needed 
 American food, raw materials, and money. A break 
 with Wilson, who for the moment was the popular 
 hero of Europe, taken in conjunction with an 
 economic crisis, might be the signal for domestic 
 disturbances if not revolution. 
 
 Thus with Germany helpless and the Allies at 
 least outwardly accepting his peace programme, 
 Woodrow Wilson seemed to be master of the situa 
 tion. And yet his power was more apparent than 
 real. Apart from that moral influence which he 
 exercised over the European liberals and which 
 among some of the working classes was so extreme 
 that candles were burnt before his picture, but 
 which also was inevitably unstable and evanescent, 
 Wilson s power rested upon the fact that he was 
 President of the United States. But the nation 
 was no longer united behind him or his policy, if 
 indeed it had ever been so. That hatred and dis 
 trust which had marked the electoral campaign of 
 1916, and which, stifled for the moment by en 
 trance into the war, had flamed out early in 1918 
 in the attack upon his war administration, now in 
 the autumn threatened an explosion of popular 
 disapprobation in some parts of the country. Men 
 
246 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 had long whispered "autocrat" but had generally 
 been silenced during the war by the admonition 
 not to weaken the government by factious criti 
 cism. Now they began to shout it from the 
 house-tops. Because of his inability to grasp the 
 importance of either tact or tactics, the President 
 made the way of his opponents easy for them. 
 
 Shortly before the Congressional elections of No 
 vember, at the moment when he felt the need 
 of national support in order to strengthen his posi 
 tion with the Allies, the President was prevailed 
 upon to issue an appeal to the electors, asking them 
 to vote for Democratic candidates on the ground 
 that the nation ought to have unified leadership 
 in the coming moment of crisis, and that a Repub 
 lican Congress would divide the leadership. There 
 was nothing novel in such an appeal; in 1898, 
 McKinley had begged for a Republican Congress 
 on the ground that "this is no time for divided 
 councils, " the same ground as that taken by Wil 
 son in 1918. Roosevelt in the same year (1898) 
 had said: "Remember that whether you will or 
 not your votes this year will be viewed by the 
 nations of Europe from one standpoint only. . . . 
 A refusal to sustain the President this year will, 
 in their eyes, be read as a refusal to sustain the war 
 
THE PATH TO PEACE 247 
 
 and to sustain the efforts of the peace commission." 
 Wilson s appeal in 1918 was merely an echo of 
 Roosevelt s in 1898. Yet it was a mistake in tac 
 tics. It enabled the Republicans to assert that, 
 whereas they had sunk partisan differences during 
 the war in order to secure the victory of the nation, 
 Wilson was now capitalizing the war and foreign 
 problems to win a partisan advantage. The result 
 of the elections was Republican success, assuring 
 to that party a slight majority in the Senate and 
 a goodly majority in the House after March 4, 1919. 
 The President made other tactical mistakes. 
 Instead of taking the Senate into his confidence 
 by entering upon numerous conferences with its 
 leaders, he stood upon the letter of the Constitu 
 tion and gave the clear impression that he would 
 conduct the peace negotiations himself without 
 Senatorial assistance, leaving the Senators merely 
 their constitutional privilege of "advice and con 
 sent" when a treaty should be laid before them. 
 He would have done better to remember a remark 
 able passage in one of his own lectures, delivered 
 ten years before. Speaking of the difficulty of 
 brmging pressure to bear upon the Senate, he had 
 said that there is a "course which the President 
 may follow, and which one or two Presidents of 
 
248 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 unusual political sagacity have followed, with the 
 satisfactory results that were to have been ex 
 pected. He may himself be less stiff and offish, 
 may himself act in the true spirit of the Constitu 
 tion and establish intimate relations of confidence 
 with the Senate on his own initiative, not carrying 
 his plans to completion and then laying them in 
 final form before the Senate to be accepted or re 
 jected, but keeping himself in confidential com 
 munication with the leaders of the Senate while 
 his plans are in course, when their advice will be 
 of service to him and his information of the greatest 
 service to them, in order that there may be verit 
 able counsel and a real accommodation of views, 
 instead of a final challenge and contest." Had 
 Wilson in 1918, and after, followed his own advice, 
 the outcome might have been different. But 
 nothing describes so perfectly the exact opposite 
 of his attitude as the passage quoted above. 
 
 The President might at least have assuaged the 
 sense of injury that rankled in the hearts of the 
 Senators by asking for their advice in the appoint 
 ment of the Peace Commission. Instead he kept 
 his own counsel. He decided to go to Paris himself 
 as head of the Commission, and chose for his asso 
 ciates men who were not qualified to win for him 
 
THE PATH TO PEACE 249 
 
 the support that he needed in the Senate or in the 
 country. Robert Lansing, as Secretary of State, 
 was a necessary appointment. Colonel House was 
 probably the best-fitted man in America for the 
 approaching negotiations, alike by his tempera 
 ment, by the breadth of his knowledge of foreign 
 questions, and by his intimacy with foreign states 
 men. But at least two places on the Commission 
 should have been given to eminent Republicans 
 and to men universally known and respected. If 
 Wilson was unwilling to select members of the 
 Senate, he might have heeded public opinion which 
 called definitely for William Howard Taft and 
 Elihu Root. Both were pledged to the most im 
 portant item of Wilson s programme, the League 
 of Nations; both exercised wide influence in the 
 country and in the Republican party. The Senate, 
 with a Republican majority, would almost cer 
 tainly ratify any treaty which they had signed. 
 But the President, for reasons of a purely negative 
 character, passed them over and with what looked 
 to the public like mere carelessness, chose General 
 Tasker Howard Bliss and Henry White, formerly 
 Ambassador to Rome and Paris under Presidents 
 Roosevelt and Taft. Both were men of ability 
 and experience, but neither enjoyed the particular 
 
250 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 confidence of the American people; and what 
 Americans chiefly wanted was the assurance of 
 persons they knew and trusted, that the peace 
 was right. In the existing state of public opin 
 ion, the assurance of the President was not in 
 itself sufficient. 
 
 President Wilson s decision to go to Paris as a 
 member of the Commission aroused still fiercer 
 opposition, but had reasons infinitely more cogent. 
 He knew that there would be great difficulty in 
 translating his ideals into fact at the Peace Con 
 ference. He believed that he could count upon the 
 support of liberal opinion in Europe, but realized 
 that the leading politicians had not yet been won 
 sincerely to his policy. The pledge they had given 
 to accept the Fourteen Points might mean much or 
 little; everything depended upon interpretation. 
 A peace of justice and a League of Nations still 
 hung in the balance. At this moment, with Ger 
 many clearly helpless, opinion abroad appeared to 
 be tending, naturally enough, toward the old-style 
 division of the spoils among the victors. More than 
 one influential French and British newspaper began 
 to sound the cry Vce victis. Moreover, in Amer 
 ica broke forth a chorus of encouragement to the 
 Allies to pay no attention to Wilsonian idealism. 
 
THE PATH TO PEACE 251 
 
 On the 27th of November, shortly before the 
 Commission sailed, Roosevelt wrote: "Our Allies 
 and our enemies and Mr. Wilson himself should all 
 understand that Mr. Wilson has no authority 
 whatever to speak for the American people at this 
 time. His leadership has just been emphatically 
 repudiated by them. . . . Mr. Wilson and his 
 Fourteen Points and his four supplementary points 
 and his five complementary points and all his 
 utterances every which way have ceased to have 
 any shadow of right to be accepted as expressive 
 of the will of the American people. . . . Let them 
 [the Allies] impose their common will on the nations 
 responsible for the hideous disaster which has al 
 most wrecked mankind." It was frank encourage 
 ment to the Allies, coming from the American who, 
 with Wilson, was best-known abroad, to divide the 
 spoils and to disregard all promises to introduce a 
 new international order, and it must have brought 
 joy to Clemenceau and Sonnino. 
 
 Wilson feared that having won the war the 
 United States might lose the peace: not by softness 
 towards Germany as yet there was no danger of 
 that but by forgetting the ideals for which it had 
 entered the war, by forgetting that a peace of in 
 justice sows the seeds of the next war, and by a 
 
252 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 relapse into the old bankrupt system of the Balance 
 of Power. He realized that the peoples of France, 
 England, and Italy had felt the pinch of war as the 
 American people had never done, and that it was 
 demanding too much of human nature to expect 
 that their attitude would be one of moderation, 
 He knew that in the negotiations Clemenceau and 
 Sonnino would be definitely opposed to his pro 
 gramme and that he could not count upon Lloyd 
 George. He decided therefore that he must him 
 self go to Paris to fight for his ideals. The decision 
 was one of tremendous significance. At the mo 
 ment when domestic problems of reconstruction 
 would be most acute, an American President was 
 going to leave the country because of the interest of 
 America in European affairs. The United States was 
 now so much a part of the world system that domes 
 tic issues seemed of less importance than the danger 
 that Europe might fall back into the old interna 
 tional system which had proved unable to keep the 
 peace. The President s voyage to France was the 
 clearest manifestation yet vouchsafed of the settled 
 position of the United States as a world power. 
 
 If the justice of his policy and the necessity of 
 full participation in the peace as in the war be ad 
 mitted, Wilson was probably right in going to 
 
THE PATH TO PEACE 25S 
 
 Paris. No one else could have secured so much of 
 his programme. No one else was possessed of the 
 political power or the personal prestige which be 
 longed to him. The history of the Conference 
 was to show that when he absented himself in 
 February and after he left Paris in June, his sub 
 ordinates found great difficulty in meeting Allied 
 opposition. But the decision of the President to 
 attend the Peace Conference furnished fresh ma 
 terial for criticism at home. It was a new thing 
 in our history; people did not understand the im 
 portance of the issues involved and attributed his 
 voyage to vanity. Unquestionably it weakened 
 Wilson in America as much as it strengthened him 
 abroad. When on the 4th of December, the presi 
 dential ship, George Washington, sailed out of New 
 York harbor, saluted by the wild shrieks of a 
 thousand sirens and the showers of glittering white 
 papers streaming from the windows of the sky 
 scrapers, preceded by the battleship Pennsylvania, 
 flanked by destroyers, with acrobatic airplanes 
 and a stately dirigible overhead, external enthu 
 siasm was apparently at its height. But Wilson 
 left behind him glowing embers of intense opposi 
 tion which, during the next six months, were to be 
 fanned into a dangerous flame. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 WAYS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 
 
 ON Friday, December 13, 1918, the George Wash 
 ington steamed slowly into Brest harbor through a 
 long double line of gray battleships and destroyers, 
 greeted by the thunder of presidential salutes and 
 the blare of marine bands. Europe thrilled with 
 emotion, which was half curiosity and half genuine 
 enthusiasm : it was to see and applaud the man who 
 during the past eighteen months had crystallized 
 in speech the undefined thought of the Allied world, 
 who represented (at least in European eyes) the 
 strength and idealism of America, and who stood, 
 for the moment, as the political Messiah to liber 
 als in every country of the Old World, victors or 
 defeated. The intensity of the curiosity as well 
 as the sincerity of the enthusiasm was attested on 
 the following day, when President Wilson drove 
 through the streets of Paris, welcomed by the vo 
 ciferous plaudits of the close-packed crowd. It was 
 
 254 
 
WAYS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 255 
 
 for him a public triumph, no greater than that 
 accorded to King Albert of Belgium and certainly 
 less demonstrative than the jubilations of armis 
 tice night, but nevertheless undeniably sweet to 
 the President, who looked to popular opinion as 
 the bulwark upon which he must rely during the 
 difficult days ahead. 
 
 Further triumphs awaited him in his trips to 
 England and to Italy. In London and Rome, as in 
 Paris, he was the object of demonstrations which at 
 tunes became almost delirious; more than once his 
 admirers must have been reminded of the Biblical 
 phrase that alludes to the honor of a prophet out 
 side his own country. The emotion of Europe is 
 not difficult to understand. The man in the street 
 was ready to shout, for the war was finished and the 
 miseries of the peace that was no peace were not 
 yet realized . Wilson stood for Justice above every 
 thing, and the people of each country believed 
 whole-heartedly that their particular demands 
 were just; the President, therefore, must stand 
 with them. To Frenchmen it was obvious that he 
 must approve the "simple justice" of the claim 
 that Germany pay the entire cost of the war; 
 Italians were convinced that he would sanction 
 their "just" demand for the annexation of Fiume. 
 
256 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 So long as Justice remained something abstract his 
 popularity remained secure. Could he retain it 
 when concrete issues arose? As early as the be 
 ginning of January ebullitions of approval became 
 less frequent. Discordant voices were audible 
 suggesting that Wilson was too prone to sacrifice 
 the material necessities of the war-burdened na 
 tions to his idealistic notions. People asked why 
 he failed to visit Belgium and the devastated re 
 gions of France, so as to see for himself what suf 
 ferings had been endured. And the historian may 
 well inquire if it were because he had not gauged 
 the depth of feeling aroused by German war prac 
 tices, or because he had determined to show the 
 Germans that he would not let his judgment be 
 clouded by emotion. Whatever the explanation, 
 his popularity suffered. 
 
 Without question the original strength of Presi 
 dent Wilson s position, resting in part upon the 
 warmth of popular feeling, which is ever uncer 
 tain, was undermined by the delays that marked 
 the opening of the Peace Conference. Such delays 
 may have resulted in part from the purpose of the 
 Allied leaders, who wished to permit public enthu 
 siasm for Wilson to cool; they may also have been 
 caused in part by the differences that developed 
 
WAYS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 257 
 
 over the incorporation of the League of Nations in 
 the Treaty. But a prime cause of delay is to be 
 found in the fact that a Peace Conference of this 
 character was a new experience and the statesmen 
 assembled were not quite sure how to conduct it. 
 Too little thought had been given to the problem 
 of organization, and the plans which had been 
 drawn up by the French and Americans were ap 
 parently forgotten. The host of diplomatic at 
 taches and technical advisers, who crowded the 
 Quai d Orsay and the hotels of Paris, had only a 
 vague notion as to their duties and waited uneasily, 
 wondering why their chiefs did not set them to 
 work. In truth the making of peace was to be 
 characterized by a looseness of organization, a 
 failure to coordinate, and a waste of time and 
 energy resulting from slipshod methods. In the 
 deliberations of the Conference there was a curious 
 mixture of efficiency and ineffectiveness; a wealth 
 of information upon the topics under discussion 
 and an inability to concentrate that information. 
 Important decisions were made and forgotten in 
 the welter of conferential disorganization. 
 
 No one could complain that delays were caused 
 by the kind of gay frivolity that characterized 
 the Vienna Congress a hundred years ago. The 
 
258 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 atmosphere of the Paris Conference was more like 
 that of a convention of traveling salesmen. The 
 Hotel Crillon, home of the American Commission, 
 was gray and gaunt as the State, War, and Navy 
 Building in Washington. Banquets were rare; 
 state balls unheard of. The President who had 
 separate headquarters, first in the Pare Monceau 
 and later on the Place des Etats Unis, avoided the 
 orthodox diversions of diplomacy and labored with 
 an intensity that was destined to result in physical 
 collapse. The very dress of the delegates mirrored 
 their businesslike attitude : high silk hats were sel 
 dom seen; Lloyd George appeared in the plainest 
 of bowlers and Colonel House in his simple, black 
 felt. Experts worked far into the early morning 
 hours in order that principals might have statis 
 tics; principals labored even on Easter Day, and 
 were roused from their beds at four in the morn 
 ing to answer telegrams. Unique departure in the 
 history of diplomacy: this was a working Peace 
 Conference ! 
 
 Each of the different commissions had brought 
 to Paris a staff of attaches and experts, upon whom 
 the principal delegates were to rely in questions of 
 fact, and who were themselves to decide points of 
 detail in drafting the economic and political clauses 
 
WAYS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 259 
 
 of the treaties and in determining new boundaries. 
 The expert staff of the American Commission had 
 been carefully selected and was generally regarded 
 as equal to that of any other power. Compared 
 with the foreign experts, its members lacked experi 
 ence in diplomatic methods, no doubt, but they 
 were as well or better equipped with exact informa 
 tion. There is an instance of an American expert 
 on a minor commission asking that a decision be al 
 tered in view of new facts just brought to light, and 
 offering to place those facts in detail before the 
 commission. "I suggest, " said a foreign delegate, 
 "that we accept the amendment without investi 
 gation. Hitherto the facts presented by the Amer 
 icans have been irrefutable; it would be waste of 
 time to investigate them." 
 
 Such men as Hoover, Hurley, and Gompers were 
 at hand to give their expert opinions on questions 
 which they had mastered during the course of the 
 war. Norman Davis and Thomas Lamont acted 
 as financial advisers. Baruch and McCormick 
 brought the wealth of experience which resulted 
 from their administration of the War Industries 
 and War Trade Boards. The foresight of Colonel 
 House, furthermore, had gathered together a group 
 of men who, organized since the summer of 1917 in 
 
260 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 what had been called "The Inquiry," had been 
 studying the conditions that would determine new 
 political boundaries on the basis of justice and 
 practicability. The principal delegates could not 
 be expected to know the details that would decide 
 the disposition of Danzig, the fate of Fiume, the 
 division of the Banat of Temesvar. They would 
 need some one to tell them the amount of coal 
 produced in the Saar Basin, the location of mines 
 in Teschen, the ethnic character of eastern Galicia, 
 the difference between Slovaks and Ruthenians. 
 It was all very well to come to the Conference with 
 demands for justice, but our commissioners must 
 have cold facts to support those demands. The 
 fact that exact information was available, and 
 played a role in the decisions of the Conference, 
 marks a step forward in the history of diplomatic 
 relations. 
 
 Contrary to general expectation and rumor, Wil 
 son, although he disregarded the American Com 
 missioners, except Colonel House, made constant 
 use of the various experts. On the George Wash 
 ington he had told a group of them that he would 
 rely absolutely upon the results of their investi 
 gations. "Tell me what s right," he had said, 
 "and I ll fight for it. Give me a guaranteed 
 
WAYS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 261 
 
 position." During the negotiations he called in 
 the experts for daily consultations; they sat behind 
 him at the sessions of the Council of Ten and on 
 the sofa beside him in the Council of Four. Their 
 advice was not always followed to the letter ; in the 
 Shantung issue it was reluctantly discarded; but 
 in such important matters as the Fiume problem, 
 Wilson rested his case wholly upon the knowledge 
 and opinions of the experts. 
 
 In defiance of the example of the Congress of 
 Vienna, which never formally gathered in plenary 
 session, the Paris Conference met with all delegates 
 for the first time, on January 18, 1919. It was a 
 picturesque scene, cast in the long Clock Room of 
 the Quai d Orsay, the conventional black of the 
 majority of delegates broken by the horizon-blue 
 uniform of Marshal Foch, the natty red-trimmed 
 khaki of British staff officers, and the white flow 
 ing robes and golden headdress of the Arabian 
 Emir Faisal; down the center of the room ran the 
 traditionally diplomatic green baize tables behind 
 which sat the delegates; attaches and press cor 
 respondents crowded into the corners or peered 
 around the curtains of adjoining rooms; at the end, 
 in front of the white marble fireplace, sat the 
 dominating personalities of the Allied world. But 
 
262 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 such plenary sessions were not to witness the actual 
 work of the Conference, nor was Wilson s de 
 mand for "open covenants openly arrived at" to 
 be translated literally into accomplishment. To 
 conduct the Peace Conference by sessions open to 
 the public was obviously not feasible. There were 
 too many delegates. Time, which was precious 
 beyond evaluation, would be lost in the making of 
 speeches for home consumption. More time would 
 be lost in translation of the Babel of languages. 
 Frankness and directness of negotiation would be 
 impossible, for if the papers should print what the 
 delegates said about each other there would be a 
 national crisis every day. Finally, a congress is by 
 nature ill-adapted for the study of intricate inter 
 national problems, as was later to be illustrated in 
 the history of the United States Senate. 
 
 The representatives of the larger European 
 Powers had assumed that the direction of the Con 
 ference would be taken by a small executive com 
 mittee, corresponding to the Supreme W r ar Coun 
 cil, and to this President W 7 ilson agreed. Such a 
 committee would necessarily meet in secret, in or 
 der that it might not be hampered by formalities 
 and that there might be frank speech. Only a 
 brief communique, stating the subject of discussion 
 
WAYS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 263 
 
 and the decision reached, would be issued to the 
 press. The committee would provide for the execu 
 tive measures that must be taken to oppose the 
 growth of economic and political anarchy in central 
 and southeastern Europe, would distribute the 
 problems that were to be studied by special com 
 missions, and would formulate or approve the solu 
 tions to those problems. It would supervise the 
 drafting of the treaties and present them to the 
 plenary conference in practically final form. Since 
 the bulk of the fighting had been carried by the 
 major powers and since they would guarantee the 
 peace, this supreme council of the Conference was 
 composed of two representatives of the major five, 
 France, Great Britain, the United States, Italy, 
 and Japan, the last-named now entering the sacred 
 coterie of "Great Powers." Among the delegates 
 of the smaller powers there was lively dissatisfac 
 tion at the exclusion from the inner council of such 
 states as Belgium and Serbia, which had been in 
 vaded by the enemy and had made heavy sacrifices 
 in the war; they complained also that the number 
 of delegates allotted them was insufficient. Al 
 ready, it was whispered, the phrases that dealt 
 with the "rights of small nations" were being for 
 gotten, and this peace congress was to be but a 
 
264 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 repetition of those previous diplomatic assemblies 
 where the spoils went to the strong. But Wilson, 
 who was regarded as the defender of the rights 
 of the small states, agreed with Clemenceau that 
 practical necessity demanded an executive council 
 of restricted numbers, and felt that such a body 
 could be trusted to see that effective justice was 
 secured. In truth the President was almost as 
 much impressed by the extreme nationalistic ardor 
 of the small powers, as a source of future danger, as 
 he was by the selfishness of the large. 
 
 The Supreme Council, during the early days of 
 the Conference, was generally known as the Coun 
 cil of Ten. It met in the study of Stephane Pichon, 
 the French Foreign Minister, which opened on 
 to the garden of the French Foreign Office, and 
 which, with its panelled walls, covered with gor 
 geous Gobelins picturing Ruben s story of Marie 
 de Medici, its stately brocaded chairs, and old- 
 rose and gray Aubusson carpets, was redolent of 
 old-time diplomacy. In the center, behind a mas 
 sive desk, sat the president of the Conference, 
 Georges Clemenceau short, squat, round-shoul 
 dered, with heavy white eyebrows and mustache 
 serving perfectly to conceal the expression both of 
 eyes and of mouth. Ordinarily he rested immobile, 
 
WAYS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 265 
 
 his hands folded in the eternal gray gloves> on 
 his face an expression of bored tolerance, the 
 expression of a man who, after half a century in 
 the political arena of France, had little to learn 
 either of men or of affairs, even from a Peace 
 Conference. Skeptical in attitude, a cold listen 
 er, obviously impermeable to mere verbiage and 
 affected by the logic of facts alone, he had a ruth 
 less finger ready to poke into the interstices of 
 a loosely-woven argument. Clemenceau spoke 
 but rarely, in low even tones, with a paucity and 
 awkwardness of gesture surprising in a Latin; he 
 was chary of eloquence, disdaining the obvious 
 arts of the rhetor, but he had at his command an 
 endless string of biting epigrams, and his satire 
 wounded with a touch so sharp that it was scarcely 
 felt or seen except by the unfortunate recipient. 
 Upon infrequent occasion, in the course of hot 
 debate, some one would pierce his armor and touch 
 him upon the unguarded quick; then the man was 
 transformed, the eyebrows would shoot up, the 
 eyes flash, the mustache bristle, the voice vibrate, 
 and the invective which he poured forth scalded like 
 molten lead. One understood at such a moment 
 why he was called " the Tiger." But such outbursts 
 were rare. More characteristic of his method of 
 
266 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 debate was the low-voiced ironical phrase, when 
 his arid humor crackled like a wireless message. 
 
 Clemenceau dwarfed the other French delegates, 
 with a single exception, not alone by the magic of 
 his personality but by the grip which he had on the 
 imagination of France. The people remembered 
 that long career, beginning with the early days of 
 the Republic and culminating with the miracle of 
 the political salvation he brought to France in the 
 dark days of 1917, when the morale of the nation 
 was near the breaking-point, and which made 
 possible the military victory of Foch. France was 
 grateful. He had no political party in the Chamber 
 upon which to rely, but the nation was behind him, 
 at least for the moment. "If I should die now," 
 he is reported to have said during the early days 
 of the Conference, "France would give me a great 
 funeral. If I live six months, no one knows what 
 may happen." For Clemenceau was a realist; he 
 did not permit himself the luxury of being deceived 
 even by the good qualities of his own countrymen. 
 If he feared anything it was the domination of 
 politics by the impractical. Mankind must be 
 taken as it is and not as we should like it to be. He 
 was troubled by what he called the "noble sim 
 plicity" of Wilson. Statesmen must be inspired 
 
WAYS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 267 
 
 by the sacred egotism which provides for the ma 
 terial safety and progress of their own nation. 
 Above all, in his mind, France was particularly 
 vulnerable and thus must insist upon particular 
 means of defense against the secular enemy across 
 the Rhine. 
 
 Behind Clemenceau, in the Council, hovered his 
 friend and Foreign Secretary, Stephane Pichon. 
 More in evidence, however, was Andre Tardieu, 
 who alone of the French delegates remained un- 
 dwarfed by the Prime Minister. Journalist, poli 
 tician, captain of Blue Devils, Franco-American 
 Commissioner, now the youngest of the French 
 peace commission, Tardieu, more than any one else 
 supplied the motive energy that carried the treaty 
 to completion. Debonair and genial, excessively 
 practical, he was the "troubleman" of the Con 
 ference: when difficulties arose over the Saar, or 
 Fiume, or reparations, Tardieu was called in to 
 work with a special committee and find a com 
 promise. Not a regular member of the Council of 
 Ten, he was nevertheless at Clemenceau s elbow, 
 and especially after the attempt on the latter s life, 
 he labored day and night on the details which 
 were too much for the strength and time of the 
 older man. 
 
268 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 On Clemenceau s right, and half facing him, sat 
 the two American delegates, Wilson and Lansing. 
 The President, to the surprise of many, was by no 
 means the awkward college professor lost among 
 practical politicians. His speech was slow and his 
 manner might almost be called ponderous, but the 
 advisers who whispered over his shoulder, during 
 the course of the debate, attested the rapidity 
 with which his mind operates and his skill in catch 
 ing the points suggested. There was far less of the 
 dogmatic doctrinaire in his attitude than had been 
 looked for. Occasionally his remarks bordered up 
 on the sententious, but he never "orated," in 
 variably using a conversational tone; many of his 
 points were driven home by humorous allusions or 
 anecdotes rather than by didactic logic. Like that 
 of the other delegates his manner was informal. 
 During the cold days of late January he walked 
 about the room during discussions in order to keep 
 his feet warm. Indeed the proceedings of the 
 Council of Ten were characterized by a noted ab 
 sence of stiffness. It was evidently expected that 
 the prestige which Wilson possessed among the 
 masses would evaporate in this inner council; but 
 nothing of the kind was apparent. It was not un 
 interesting to note that when a point was raised 
 
WAYS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 269 
 
 every one looked involuntarily to see how it would 
 be taken by the President; and when the dele 
 gates of the smaller Powers appeared before the 
 Council they addressed their remarks almost di 
 rectly at him. Lansing spoke seldom, but then 
 with force and conviction, and was evidently more 
 troubled than Wilson by the compromises with ex 
 pediency which the Americans were compelled to 
 make. His attention was never distracted by the 
 sketches which he drew without ceasing, during 
 the course of the debates grotesque and humorous 
 figures, much in demand by every one present as 
 mementos of the Conference. 
 
 Next on the right sat David Lloyd George, with 
 thick gray hair and snapping Celtic eyes. Alert 
 and magnetic, he was on the edge of his chair, 
 questioning and interrupting. Frankly ignorant 
 of the details of continental geography and politics, 
 naive in his inquiries, he possessed the capacity 
 for acquiring effective information at lightning 
 speed. Unfortunately he was not over-critical and 
 the source of his information was not invariably 
 the highest authority; he was prone to accept the 
 views of journalists rather than those of his own 
 Foreign Office. Effervescent as a bottle just rid of 
 its cork, he was also unstable, twisting and veering 
 
270 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 in his suggestions; not so much blown about by the 
 winds of hostile criticism, to which he paid but 
 little attention, as carried on by the shifting tides of 
 political events at home. For his eye was always 
 across the Channel, calculating the domestic effect 
 of each treaty provision. Few could resist his per 
 sonal magnetism in conversation and no one would 
 deny him the title of master-politician of his age. 
 During the first weeks of the Conference, Wilson 
 seems to have fallen under the spell of Lloyd 
 George to some extent, who showed himself quite 
 as liberal as the President in many instances. But 
 Wilson was clearly troubled by the Welshman s 
 mercurial policy, and before he finally left for 
 America, found relief in the solid consistency of 
 Clemenceau. He always knew where the French 
 Premier stood, no matter how much he might differ 
 from him in point of view. 
 
 Beside Lloyd George, a perfect foil, sat Arthur 
 J. Balfour, assuming the attitude habitual to him 
 after long years in the House of Commons head 
 on the back of his chair, body reclining at a com 
 fortable angle, long legs stretched in front, hands 
 grasping the lapels of his coat, eyes at frequent 
 intervals closed. Rising, he overtopped every one 
 present, white and bent though he was, in physical 
 
WAYS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 271 
 
 stature as he did also in pure intellectual power. 
 Graceful in tone and expression his outlook was 
 the philosophical, possibly over-tolerant for the 
 exigencies of the situation, although upon occasion 
 his judgment proved a valuable counterweight to 
 the hasty enthusiasm of Lloyd George. But Bal- 
 four, like Lansing, was sometimes treated with 
 scant consideration by his chief and by no means 
 exercised the influence which his experience and 
 capacity would lead one to expect. 
 
 On the right of the British delegates sat the two 
 Japanese, silent, observant, their features immobile 
 as the Sphinx. It was a bold man who would 
 attempt to guess the thoughts masked by their 
 impassive faces. They waited for the strategic 
 moment when they were to present their special 
 claims; until then they attended all meetings, 
 scarcely speaking a word, unwilling to commit 
 themselves. Upon one occasion, in a minor com 
 mission, the Japanese delegate held the deciding 
 vote, the other four delegations being tied; when 
 asked by the chairman how he voted, whether with 
 the French and Americans or with the British and 
 Italians, the Japanese responded simply, "Yes." 
 Next the Japanese, but facing Clemenceau and 
 about twelve feet from him, were the Italians: 
 
272 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Sonnino with his close-cropped white bullet head 
 and heavy drooping mustache, his great Roman 
 nose coming down to meet an equally strong out- 
 jutting chin, his jaw set like a steel latch. The 
 hawklike appearance of the man was softened in 
 debate by the urbanity of his manner and the 
 modulations of his voice. Orlando was less dis 
 tinctive in appearance and character. Eloquent 
 and warm-hearted, he was troubled by the con 
 sciousness that failure to secure the full extent of 
 Italian claims spelled the downfall of his ministry 
 in Rome. It is of some historical importance that 
 Sonnino, who spoke perfect English with just a 
 trace of Etonian inflection, was the more obsti 
 nate in his demands; Orlando, who showed himself 
 inclined to compromise, spoke no English and 
 therefore could come into intellectual contact with 
 Wilson and Lloyd George only through the medium 
 of an interpreter. 
 
 Proceedings were necessarily in both French 
 and English, because none of the big men except 
 Clemenceau and Sonnino used the two languages 
 with comfort. The interpreter, Mantoux, who sat 
 behind Clemenceau, was no mere translator. A 
 few notes scribbled on a pad were sufficient for him 
 to render the sense of a speech with keen accuracy 
 
WAYS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 273 
 
 and frequently with a fire and a pungency that sur 
 passed the original. He spoke always in the first 
 person as though the points made in debate were 
 his own, and the carrying of each particular point 
 the ideal nearest his heart. Behind the principals, 
 the "Olympians," as they came to be called, were 
 the experts and attaches, with long rolls of maps 
 and complex tables of statistics, ready to answer 
 questions of detailed facts. In truth there was 
 more reference to sources of exact information by 
 the chief delegates than would have been expected 
 by the student of former diplomatic practices. 
 
 In the center of the room, facing the Olympians, 
 stood or sat the particular claimant or expert 
 witness of the seance. Now it might be Marshal 
 Foch, with wrinkled, weary, war-worn visage, and 
 thin rumpled hair, in shabby uniform, telling of Ger 
 many s failure to fulfill the armistice conditions; one 
 would meet him later in the corridor outside 
 like Grant, he was apt to have the stump of a black 
 cigar in the corner of his mouth usually shaking 
 his head ominously over the failure of the politi 
 cians to treat Germany with the requisite severity. 
 Or the claimant before the Ten might be the grave, 
 self-contained Venizelos, once outlaw and revolu 
 tionary, now, after many turns of fortune s wheel, 
 
 18 
 
274 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 master of Greece and perhaps the greatest states 
 man of them all. Then again would appear the 
 boyish Foreign Minister of the Czecho-Slovak 
 Republic, Edward Benes, winning friends on all 
 sides by his frank sincerity and ready smile; or, 
 perfect contrast, the blackbearded Bratiano of 
 Rumania, claiming the enforcement of the secret 
 treaty that was to double the area of his state. 
 Later, Paderewski came from Warsaw, his art 
 sacrificed on the altar of patriotism, leonine in 
 appearance, but surprisingly untemperamental in 
 diplomatic negotiation. 
 
 To each of these and to many others who pre 
 sented problems for immediate settlement the 
 Council listened, for it had not merely to draw up 
 treaties and provide for the future peace of the 
 world, but also to meet crises of the moment. The 
 starving populations of central and southeastern 
 Europe must be fed; tiny wars that had sprung up 
 between smaller nationalities must be attended to 
 and armistice commissions dispatched; the reha 
 bilitation of railroads and river transportation de 
 manded attention; coal mines must be operated and 
 labor difficulties adjusted. This economic renais 
 sance had to be accomplished in face of national 
 istic quarrels and the social unrest that threatened 
 
WAYS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 275 
 
 to spread the poison of communistic revolution as 
 far west as the Rhine and the Adriatic. 
 
 From the beginning it was clear that the actual 
 drafting of the treaty clauses would have to be 
 undertaken by special commissions. The work 
 could never be completed except by a subdivision 
 of labor and the assignment of particular problems 
 to especially competent groups. As the Council 
 of Ten faced the situation, they decided that the 
 number of the commissions must be increased. By 
 the beginning of February the work was largely 
 subdivided. There was a commission headed by 
 President Wilson working on the League of Na 
 tions, while others studied such problems as 
 responsibility for the war, reparations, interna 
 tional labor legislation, international control of 
 ports, waterways, and railways, financial and eco 
 nomic problems, military, naval, and aerial ques 
 tions. When the Council of Ten found themselves 
 puzzled by the conflicting territorial claims of dif 
 ferent Allied nations, they decided to create also 
 special territorial commissions to study bounda 
 ries and to report their recommendations back 
 to the Supreme Council. It was President Wilson, 
 chafing at the early delays of the Conference, who 
 eagerly adopted a suggestion of Colonel House to 
 
276 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 the effect that time might be saved if the experts of 
 the different states attacked boundary problems 
 and thus relieved the strain upon the time and 
 nerves of the Olympians, who could not be ex 
 pected to know or understand the details of each 
 question. The suggestion was approved by the 
 chiefs of the Allied governments. There were five 
 such territorial commissions, which were in turn 
 subdivided, while a single central territorial com 
 mission was appointed to coordinate the reports. 
 The more important commissions, such as that 
 upon the League of Nations, were composed of 
 plenipotentiaries and included generally represen 
 tatives from the smaller states. The reparations, 
 financial, and labor commissions were made up of 
 business men and financiers, the American repre 
 sentatives including such figures as Lamont, Nor 
 man Davis, Baruch, and McCormick. The terri 
 torial commissions were composed of the represen 
 tatives of the four principal Powers; most of the 
 European delegates, who were in some cases also 
 plenipotentiaries, were chosen from the staffs of 
 the Foreign Offices, and included such men as Sir 
 Eyre Crowe, Jules Cambon, Tardieu, and Sal- 
 vago Raggi. The American delegates were gen 
 erally members of the Inquiry, men who had been 
 
WAYS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 277 
 
 working on these very problems for more than a 
 year. The special commissions worked with care 
 and assiduity, and their decisions rested gener 
 ally on facts established after long discussion. To 
 this extent, at least, the Paris Conference was 
 characterized by a new spirit in diplomacy. 
 
 Upon the reports of these commissions were 
 based the draft articles of the treaties, which were 
 then referred back to the Supreme Council. By 
 the time the reports were finished, that body had 
 divided inco two smaller bodies: the Council of 
 Foreign Ministers, and the Council of Premiers, 
 composed of Clemenceau, Lloyd George, Wilson, 
 and Orlando. The latter body, which came to be 
 known as the Council of Four, or, colloquially, 
 the "Big Four," naturally assumed complete di 
 rection. It was unfortunate certainly that a con 
 gress which had started with the cry of "open 
 covenants" should thus find itself practically 
 resolved into a committee of four. Disappoint 
 ed liberals have assumed that the inner council 
 was formed with the object of separating Presi 
 dent Wilson from contact with popular ideas 
 and bringing him to acceptance of the old-style 
 peace desired by Clemenceau. In reality the Coun 
 cil of Four was simply a revival of the informal 
 
278 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 committee which had sat during the autumn of 
 1918, when Colonel House, Lloyd George, and 
 Clemenceau had met by themselves to formulate 
 the policy to be adopted when Germany presented 
 her demand for an armistice. When Wilson left 
 Paris in February, Colonel House, who became 
 chiefly responsible for the American side of nego 
 tiations, found the Council of Ten unwieldy. It 
 was attended by as many as thirty or forty per 
 sons, some of whom seemed inclined to spread col 
 ored accounts of what was going on, and the very 
 size of the meeting tended toward the making 
 of speeches and the slowing-down of progress. 
 Furthermore, at that time Clemenceau, confined 
 to his house by the wound inflicted by a would-be 
 assassin, was unable to attend the sessions of the 
 Council of Ten. It was natural, therefore, that the 
 three statesmen who had worked so effectively the 
 preceding autumn should now renew their private 
 conferences. When Wilson returned to Paris in 
 March, and learned from Colonel House how much 
 more rapidly the small committee was able to dis 
 pose of vexatious questions, he readily agreed to it. 
 Nor is there any valid evidence extant to show that 
 his influence was seriously impaired by the change, 
 although the sessions of the Council of Four took 
 
WAYS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 279 
 
 on a greater appearance of secrecy than had been 
 desired by Colonel House. 
 
 The Council of Four acted as a board of review 
 and direction rather than of dictators. When the 
 reports of the expert commissions were unanimous 
 they were generally accepted with little or no 
 alteration. Wlien a divided report was sent up, 
 the Four were compelled to reach a compromise, 
 since every delay threatened to give new oppor 
 tunity to the forces of social disorder in Germany 
 and southeastern Europe. The Council met or 
 dinarily in the house used by President Wilson, on 
 the Place des Etats-Unis. Some of the conferences 
 were held in a small room downstairs without the 
 presence of secretaries or advisers; frequently, how 
 ever, the experts were called in to meet with the 
 chiefs in the large front room upstairs, and would 
 often monopolize the discussion, the Four playing 
 the part of listeners merely. Formality was dis 
 pensed with. During a debate upon the south 
 ern boundary of Austria, President Wilson might 
 have been seen on all fours, kneeling on the 
 floor and tracing out the suggested frontier on a 
 huge map, while other peace commissioners and 
 experts surrounded him, also on their hands and 
 knees. Hours of labor were long. There was, 
 
280 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 certainly, much discussion that hinged upon self 
 ish nationalist interests, but also much that was 
 inspired by a sincere desire to secure the solution 
 that would permanently restore the tranquillity 
 of Europe. 
 
 The presence of President Wilson did much to 
 maintain the idealism that jostled national self- 
 seeking in the final drafting of the treaties. Though 
 he lacked the political brilliance of Lloyd George 
 and had not the suppressed but irresistible vehe 
 mence that characterized Clemenceau, his very 
 simplicity of argument availed much. He was not 
 destined to carry through the full programme of 
 idealism as set out in the Fourteen Points, at least 
 not as interpreted by most liberals. He could not 
 secure the peace of reconciliation which he had 
 planned, but even with his popularity in France, 
 Belgium, and Italy lost, and his prestige dimmed, 
 he retained such a strong position in the Council 
 of Four that he was able to block some of the 
 more extreme propositions advanced by imperial 
 ist elements, and, more positively, to secure what 
 he had most at heart, the League of Nations. 
 Whether he yielded more than he gained is a ques 
 tion which demands more detailed consideration. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE OF NATIONS? 
 
 WHATEVER mistakes President Wilson made at 
 Paris, he did not greatly underestimate the diffi 
 culties of his task when he set forth from the United 
 States. The liberal utterances of the Allied chiefs 
 during the war had never succeeded in winning his 
 sincere confidence; more than once he had even in 
 timated that he did not consider their governments 
 completely representative of public opinion. He 
 anticipated a struggle with Clemenceau and Lloyd 
 George over the amount of indemnity which was to 
 be demanded from Germany, as well as over the 
 territory of which she was to be deprived. Their 
 formal approval of the Fourteen Points had been a 
 cause of intense satisfaction to him, but he realized 
 definitely that they would make every effort to in 
 terpret them in terms of purely national self-inter 
 est. This he regarded as the greatest difficulty to 
 be met at Paris. The second difficulty lay in the 
 
 281 
 
282 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 extreme demands that were being made by the 
 smaller nationalities, now liberated from Teuton 
 dominion or overlordship. Poland, Rumania, Ser 
 bia, Greece, were all asking for territory which 
 could only be assigned to them on the ancient prin 
 ciple of the division of spoils among the victors. 
 The spirit of nationalism which had played a role 
 of so much importance in the antecedents of the 
 war, as well as in the downfall of the Central 
 Empires, now threatened to ruin the peace. As 
 we have seen, it was partly because of this second 
 danger that Wilson agreed to the exclusion of 
 the smaller states from the Supreme Council of 
 the Allies. 
 
 Upon the details of the treaties, whether of an 
 economic or a territorial character, the President 
 did not at first lay great stress. He was interested 
 chiefly in the spirit that lay behind the treaties. 
 The peace, he insisted, must be one of justice and, 
 if possible, one of reconciliation. More concretely, 
 the great point of importance was the establish 
 ment of a League of Nations ; for the President be 
 lieved that only through the building up of a new 
 international system, based upon the concert of 
 all democratic states, could permanent justice and 
 amity be secured. Only a new system could suffice 
 
BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE ? 283 
 
 to prevent the injustice that great states work upon 
 small, and to stamp out the germs of future war. 
 It would be the single specific factor that would 
 make this treaty different from and better than 
 treaties of the past. The ultimate origin of the 
 great war was less to be sought in the aspirations 
 and malevolence of Germany, he believed, than in 
 the disorganized international system of Europe. 
 Unless that were radically reformed, unless a re 
 gime of diplomatic cooperation were substituted 
 for the Balance of Power, neither justice nor peace 
 could last. The old system had failed too often. 
 
 Wilson does not seem to have formulated defi 
 nitely before he reached Paris the kind of League 
 which he desired to see created. He was opposed 
 to such intricate machinery as that proposed by the 
 League to Enforce Peace, and favored an extremely 
 simple organization which might evolve naturally 
 to meet conditions of the future. The chief organ 
 of a League, he felt, should be an executive council, 
 possibly composed of the ambassadors to some 
 small neutral power. If trouble threatened in any 
 quarter, the council was to interfere at once and 
 propose a settlement. If this proved unsuccessful, 
 a commercial boycott might be instituted against 
 the offending state: it was to be outlawed, and, as 
 
284 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Wilson said, "outlaws are not popular now." He 
 regarded it as important that the German colonies 
 should not be divided among the Allies, but should 
 be given to the League, to be administered possibly 
 through some smaller power; for an institution, 
 he felt, is always stabilized by the possession of 
 property. 
 
 Such were, broadly speaking, the ideas which 
 seemed uppermost in the President s mind when he 
 landed in France, and which he was determined 
 should form the basis of the peace. He anticipated 
 opposition, and he was in a measure prepared to 
 fight for his ideals. But he failed adequately to 
 appreciate the confusion which had fallen upon 
 Europe, after four years and more of war, and 
 which made the need of a speedy settlement so im 
 perative. If he had gauged more accurately the 
 difficulties of his task he would have been more 
 insistent upon the drafting of a quick preliminary 
 peace, embodying merely general articles, and 
 leaving all the details of the settlement to be 
 worked out by experts at their leisure. He might 
 thus have utilized his popularity and influence when 
 it was at its height, and have avoided the loss of 
 prestige which inevitably followed upon the dis 
 cussion of specific issues, when he was compelled to 
 
BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE ? 285 
 
 take a stand opposed to the national aspirations 
 of the various states. Such a general preliminary 
 treaty would have gone far towards restoring a 
 basis for the resumption of normal political and 
 economic activity; it would have permitted Wilson 
 to return to the United States as the unquestioned 
 leader of the world; it would have blunted the edge 
 of senatorial opposition; and finally it might have 
 enabled him to avoid the controversies with Allied 
 leaders which compelled him to surrender much of 
 his original programme in a series of compromises. 
 It is only fair to Wilson to remember that his 
 original plan, in November, was to secure such a 
 preliminary treaty, which was to embody merely 
 the general lines of a territorial settlement and the 
 disarmament of the enemy. The delays which 
 postponed the treaty were not entirely his fault. 
 Arriving in France on the 13th of December, he ex 
 pected that the Conference would convene on the 
 seventeenth, the date originally set. But days 
 passed and neither the French nor the British took 
 steps toward the opening of negotiations. They 
 had not even appointed their delegates. Lloyd 
 George sent messages of welcome from across the 
 Channel, but explained that domestic affairs de 
 tained him in England. Conscious of the struggle 
 
286 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 that was likely to arise between the "practical" 
 aspirations of Europe and the "idealism" of Amer 
 ica, the Allied leaders evidently were in no hurry to 
 give to the exponent of the ideal the advantage of 
 the popular support that he enjoyed during the 
 early days following his arrival upon European 
 shores. Hence it was not until the second week of 
 January that the delegations began to assemble 
 at Paris. In the interval Wilson had become in 
 volved in various detailed problems and he had 
 lost the opportunity, if indeed it ever offered, to 
 demand immediate agreement on preliminary terms 
 of peace. 
 
 Notwithstanding the delays, the President se 
 cured an early triumph in the matter which he had 
 closest at heart, namely, a League of Nations and 
 its incorporation in the Treaty. Clemenceau had 
 taken issue publicly with Wilson. WTien the Presi 
 dent, in the course of his English speeches, affirmed 
 that this was the first necessity of a world which 
 had seen the system of alliances fail too often, the 
 French Premier replied in the Chamber of Depu 
 ties, on the 29th of December, that for his part he 
 held to the old principle of alliances which had 
 saved France in the past and must save her in the 
 future, and that his sense of the practical would not 
 
BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE? 287 
 
 be affected by the "noble candeur" of President 
 Wilson. The polite sneer that underlay the latter 
 phrase aroused the wrath of the more radical depu 
 ties, but the Chamber gave Clemenceau an over 
 whelming vote of confidence as he thus threw 
 down the gage. In the meantime Lloyd George had 
 shown himself apparently indifferent to the League 
 and much more interested in what were beginning 
 to be called the "practical issues." 
 
 With the opening of the Conference, however, it 
 soon became apparent that W T ilson had secured the 
 support of the British delegates. It is possible that 
 a trade had been tacitly consummated. Certain it 
 is that the "freedom of the seas," which the British 
 delegates were determined should not enter into 
 the issues of the Peace Conference and which had 
 threatened to make the chief difficulty between 
 British and Americans, was never openly discussed. 
 Had Wilson decided to drop or postpone this most 
 indefinite of his Fourteen Points, on the under 
 standing that the British would give their support 
 to the League ? At all events, the League of Nations 
 was given an important place on the programme 
 of deliberations, and at the second of the plenary 
 sessions of the Conference, held on January 25, 1919, 
 the principle of a League was approved without a 
 
288 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 dissentient voice; it was also decided that the 
 League should be made an integral part of the 
 Treaty. Wilson, in addition to acquiring British 
 support had won that of the Italians, to whom 
 he had promised his aid in securing the Brenner 
 frontier in the Tyrol. Clemenceau, according 
 to an American delegate, "had climbed on the 
 band-wagon." 
 
 The President s victory was emphasized when he 
 also won the Europeans and the representatives 
 of the British overseas Dominions to acceptance 
 of the principle of "mandatories," according to 
 which the German colonies were not to be distrib 
 uted as spoils amongst the victors, but to become 
 the property of the League and to be adminstered 
 by the mandatory states, not for their own benefit 
 but for that of the colonies. The victory was not 
 complete, since Wilson s first intention had been 
 that the mandatory states should not be the great 
 powers, but such states as Holland or one of the 
 Scandinavian nations. He was compelled to ad 
 mit the right of the British and French to take over 
 the colonies as mandatories. Even so, the strug 
 gle over the issue was intense, Premier Hughes of 
 Australia leading the demand that the German 
 colonies should be given outright to the Allies and 
 
BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE ? 289 
 
 the British self-governing Dominions. Again the 
 support of Lloyd George brought success to the 
 American policy. 
 
 In order to assure his victory in the foundation 
 of a League of Nations, it was necessary that before 
 returning home Wilson should see some definite 
 scheme elaborated. Until the 14th of February he 
 labored with the special committee appointed to 
 draft a specific plan, which included much of the 
 best political talent of the world: Lord Robert 
 Cecil, General Smuts, Venizelos, Leon Bourgeois. 
 In order to avoid the criticism that consideration 
 of a League was delaying the preparation of peace 
 terms, the commission met in the evenings so as not 
 to interrupt the regular meetings of the Council of 
 Ten. It was a tour de force, this elaboration of a 
 charter for the new international order, in less than 
 three weeks. At times the task seemed hopeless 
 as one deadlock after another developed. Wilson, 
 who presided over the commission, lacked the skill 
 and courage displayed by Clemenceau in his con 
 duct of the plenary sessions, and proved unable to 
 prevent fruitless discussion; possibly he feared lest 
 he be regarded as autocratic in pushing his pet plan. 
 At all events precious moments were dissipated in 
 long speeches, and general principles threatened to 
 
 10 
 
290 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 be lost In a maze of details. With but two days left 
 before the plenary session of the Conference and 
 the date set for Wilson s sailing, the commission 
 had approved only six of the twenty-seven articles 
 of the Covenant. Fortune intervened. The pres 
 ence of Wilson was demanded at the Council of 
 Ten and his place as chairman was taken by Lord 
 Robert Cecil. The latter showed himself effective. 
 Ably seconded by Colonel House, he passed over 
 all details and pushed the final stages of the report 
 through at top speed; on the 14th of February the 
 Covenant of the League was completed. It was 
 sanctioned by the plenary session of the Conference 
 that afternoon, and in the evening Wilson left for 
 America with the document in his pocket. Doubt 
 less it seemed to him that the major portion of his 
 task had been accomplished. 
 
 The mechanism of the League thus proposed is 
 said to have been largely evolved by Smuts and 
 Cecil, but it coincided roughly with the ideas that 
 Wilson had already conceived. Much of the lan 
 guage of the Covenant is Wilson s; its form was 
 mainly determined by the British and American 
 legal experts, C. J. B. Hurst and D. H. Miller. 
 It provided for an executive council representing 
 nine powers, and a deliberative assembly of all the 
 
BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE ? 291 
 
 members of the League. The Council must meet 
 annually and take under advisement any mat 
 ters threatening to disturb international peace. 
 Its recommendations must be unanimous. The 
 Assembly was entirely without executive power. 
 The members of the League were to agree not to 
 make war without first submitting the matter un 
 der dispute to arbitration or to the consideration 
 of the Council. Failure to abide by this agree 
 ment would constitute an act of war against 
 the League, which upon recommendation of the 
 Council, might boycott the offending state eco 
 nomically or exercise military force against it. 
 The Covenant declared it "to be the friendly right 
 of each Member of the League to bring to the 
 attention of the Assembly or of the Council any 
 circumstance whatever affecting international re 
 lations which threatens to disturb international 
 peace or the good understanding between nations 
 upon which peace depends." The members of the 
 League, furthermore, undertook "to respect and 
 preserve as against external aggression the terri 
 torial integrity and existing independence of all 
 members of the League. In case of any such ag 
 gression the Council shall advise upon the means 
 by which this obligation shall be fulfilled" (Article 
 
292 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 X). These two provisions embodied the particu 
 lar contributions of Wilson to the Covenant, who 
 believed that the capacity of the League to pre 
 serve justice and peace depended chiefly upon them. 
 The Covenant also provided in some measure for 
 military and naval disarmament by giving to the 
 Council the right to recommend the size of the force 
 to be maintained by each member of the League, 
 and it attacked secret diplomacy by abrogating 
 previous obligations inconsistent with the Cove 
 nant and by providing that every future treaty 
 must be registered and published. 
 
 If the President expected to be hailed at home as 
 conquering hero, he was destined to bitter disap 
 pointment. He must now pay the price for those 
 tactical mistakes which had aroused opinion 
 against him in the previous autumn. The elements 
 which he had antagonized by his war-policies, by 
 his demand for a Democratic Congress, by his fail 
 ure to cooperate with the Senate in the formulation 
 of American policy and in the appointment of the 
 Peace Commission, and which had opposed his de 
 parture in person to Paris all those elements now 
 had their chance. Having won a difficult victory 
 over reactionary forces in Europe, Wilson was now 
 compelled to begin the struggle over again at home. 
 
BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE ? 293 
 
 And whereas at Paris he had displayed some skill 
 in negotiation and an attitude of conciliation even 
 when firm in his principles, upon his return he 
 adopted a tone which showed that he had failed to 
 gauge the temper of the people. He probably had 
 behind him the majority of the independent think 
 ers, even many who disliked him personally but 
 who appreciated the importance and the value of 
 the task he was trying to carry through. The mass 
 of the people, however, understood little of what 
 was going on at Paris. The situation abroad was 
 complex and it had not been clarified adequately by 
 the press. Opinion needed to be educated. It 
 wanted to know why a League was necessary and 
 whether its elaboration was postponing peace and 
 the return of the doughboys. Why must the 
 League be incorporated in the Treaty? And did 
 the League put the United States at the mercy of 
 European politicians and would it involve our 
 country in a series of European wars in which we 
 had no interest? 
 
 What followed must be counted as little less than 
 a tragedy. The man of academic antecedents with 
 masterly powers of exposition, who had voiced 
 popular thought during the years of the war so ad 
 mirably, now failed completely as an educator of 
 
294 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 opinion. The President might have shown that the 
 League Covenant, instead of postponing peace, 
 was really essential to a settlement, since it was to 
 facilitate solutions of various territorial problems 
 which might otherwise hold the Conference in de 
 bate for months. He could have demonstrated 
 with a dramatic vigor which the facts made pos 
 sible, the anarchical condition of Europe and the 
 need for some sort of international system of co 
 operation if a new cataclysm was to be avoided, and 
 he might have pictured the inevitable repercussive 
 effect of such a cataclysm upon America. He might 
 have shown that in order to give effect to the terms 
 of the Treaty, it was necessary that the League 
 Covenant should be included within it. He could 
 have emphasized the fact that the Covenant took 
 from Congress no constitutional powers, that the 
 Council of the League, on which the United States 
 was represented, must be unanimous before taking 
 action, and then could only make recommenda 
 tions. But the President failed to explain the situ 
 ation in terms comprehensible to the average man. 
 However adequate his addresses seemed to those 
 who understood the situation abroad, they left the 
 American public cold. His final speech in the 
 Metropolitan Opera House in New York City was 
 
BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE? 295 
 
 especially unfortunate, for his statement that he 
 would bring back the Treaty and the League so 
 intertwined that no one could separate them sound 
 ed like a threat. At the moment when he needed 
 the most enthusiastic support to curb the oppo 
 sition of the Senate, he alienated thousands and 
 lost the chance to convince tens of thousands. 
 
 These developments did not pass unnoticed in 
 Europe. Clemenceau and Lloyd George had yielded 
 to Wilson during the first weeks of the Conference 
 because they could not afford to separate their for 
 tunes from the United States, upon whom they de 
 pended for economic support, and because an open 
 break with Wilson would weaken their own position 
 with liberals in France and England. But now it 
 became apparent to them that Wilson s position at 
 home was so unstable that they might be justified 
 in adopting a stronger tone. Each of them could 
 point to the tangible evidence of victorious elec 
 tions and votes of confidence. President Wilson 
 could not. The party in the Senate which, after the 
 4th of March, would hold the majority, expressly 
 repudiated Wilson s policy. WTien the President 
 returned to Paris, on the 14th of March, he found a 
 different atmosphere. The League was no longer 
 the central topic of discussion. Concrete questions 
 
296 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 were uppermost. How much should Germany 
 pay? What territory should be taken from her? 
 How was the Kaiser to be punished? Wilson had 
 been given the satisfaction of securing approval for 
 the principle of the League. Now he must permit 
 the Conference to satisfy the practical aspirations 
 of France, England, and Italy. 
 
 It is a tribute to the personality of Wilson that 
 by his presence at this critical juncture, when the 
 attitude of the Allies differed but slightly, if at all, 
 from that of the powers at the Congress of Vienna, 
 he was able to bring back something of the spirit of 
 justice which had been so frequently and loudly de 
 claimed before the armistice, and to repress at 
 least in some degree the excessive claims which de 
 manded satisfaction in the treaties. The plans 
 which, during his absence, had been evolved for the 
 separation of the Covenant from the Treaty and 
 for its postponement, and which had received the 
 hearty support of several French and British diplo 
 mats, were quickly dropped. Wilson was able to 
 announce without contradiction, that the Cove 
 nant would be an integral part of the Treaty, as de 
 cided on the 25th of January. Far more difficult 
 was the situation that resulted from French and 
 British plans for indemnities from Germany, and 
 
BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE ? 297 
 
 from the French territorial claims on the Rhine. 
 In each of these matters Wilson could secure noth 
 ing better than a compromise. 
 
 From the day when peace dawned upon Europe, 
 the question that had touched Allied peoples most 
 closely was, How much will Germany pay? It was 
 not so much the shout of the brutal victor greedy 
 for loot, as the involuntary cry of nations which 
 had seen their homes and factories pulverized, 
 their ships sunk, the flower of their youth killed 
 and maimed, and which now faced years of crush 
 ing taxation. They had carried the load of war 
 gallantly and they would enter the struggle for 
 recuperation courageously. But they would not 
 endure that the enemy, which had forced these mis 
 eries upon them, should not make good the material 
 damage that had been done. WThat was the mean 
 ing of the word justice, if the innocent victors were 
 to emerge from the war with keener sufferings and 
 more gloomy future than the guilty defeated? An 
 other question stirred the mind of every French 
 man. For generations the eastern frontier of 
 France had lain open to the invasion of the Teuton 
 hordes. The memory of Prussian brutality in 1814 
 had been kept alive in every school; the horrors of 
 1870 had been told and retold by participants and 
 
298 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 eye-witnesses; and the world had seen the German 
 crimes of 1914. From all France the cry went up, 
 How long? It would be the most criminal stupid 
 ity if advantage were not taken of the momentary 
 helplessness of the inevitable enemy in order to 
 make that vulnerable frontier secure. This was 
 not the end. Some day the struggle would be re 
 newed. Already, within two months of the armis 
 tice, the French General Staff were considering 
 mobilization plans for the next war. France must 
 be made safe while she had the chance. 
 
 These feelings had such a hold on the people that 
 the statesmen of Europe would have been over 
 thrown on the day they forgot them. Popular sen 
 timent was reenforced by practical considerations 
 less justifiable. Crushing indemnities would not 
 merely ease the load of Allied taxation and furnish 
 capital for rapid commercial development; they 
 would also remove Germany as an economic com 
 petitor. French control of all territory west of the 
 Rhine would not only assure France against the 
 danger of another German invasion, but would also 
 provide her capitalists with a preponderating eco 
 nomic advantage in regions by no means French in 
 character. Such selfish interests the Americans 
 strove to set aside, although they never forgot their 
 
BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE? 299 
 
 desire to secure as complete justice for the Allies 
 as seemed compatible with a stable and tranquil 
 settlement. 
 
 In the matter of indemnities, or reparations as 
 they came to be called, the experts of the various 
 powers soon established the fact that Germany 
 would be unable to pay the total bill of reparation, 
 even at the most conservative reckoning. There 
 was a long discussion as to whether or not the costs 
 of war, aside from material damage done, that had 
 been incurred by the Allies, should be included in 
 the amount that Germany was to pay. It was finally 
 determined, in accordance with the arguments of 
 the American financial delegates who were warmly 
 supported by President Wilson, that such war 
 costs should be excluded. On the other hand it 
 was agreed that pensions might properly be made 
 part of Germany s reparation bill. The two items 
 of damages and pensions were calculated by the 
 American experts as amounting to a total figure of 
 not less than $30,000,000,000 present capital sum, 
 which Germany ought to pay. 
 
 The next step was to determine how much Ger 
 many could be made to pay. By drafting too 
 severe terms German trade might be destroyed 
 completely and Germany left without the economic 
 
300 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 capacity to make the money that was to pay the 
 bill. It was obvious to careful students that the 
 total amount which she could turn over to the Al 
 lies could not be much more than the excess of her 
 exports over imports; and that even if payments 
 were extended over twenty or thirty years their 
 value for purposes of reparation would probably 
 not much exceed twenty-five billion dollars. Lloyd 
 George in his election pledges had promised that 
 the complete reparations account would be settled 
 by the enemy; neither he nor Clemenceau dared to 
 confess that the sum which could be exacted from 
 Germany would fall far below their early promises. 
 The British experts, Sumner and Cunliffe, con 
 tinued to encourage Lloyd George in his belief that 
 Germany could afford to pay something in the 
 neighborhood of a hundred billion dollars, and the 
 French Finance Minister, Klotz, was equally op 
 timistic. At first, accordingly, Allied demands on 
 Germany seemed likely to be fantastic. 
 
 The Americans, on the other hand, were in 
 finitely more conservative in their estimates of 
 what Germany could pay. Even after certain 
 Allied experts, including Montagu and Loucheur, 
 affirmed the necessity of scaling down the sug 
 gested sum of reparations, the difference between 
 
BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE ? 301 
 
 the American proposals and those of the Allies 
 was serious. 1 Political considerations, however, 
 interposed, and preventing the settling of a defi 
 nite total sum which Germany must pay. Neither 
 Lloyd George nor Clemenceau dared to go to their 
 constituents with the truth, namely that Germany 
 could not possibly pay the enormous indemnities 
 which the politicians had led the people to expect. 
 (Lloyd George, for example, had stated the sum 
 that Germany must pay at about $120,000,000,- 
 000.) Both the chiefs of state asserted that they 
 were almost certain to be turned out of office as 
 a result, with consequent confusion in the Peace 
 Conference, and a prolongation of the crisis. The 
 only escape seemed to be in a postponement of 
 the problem by not naming any definite sum 
 which Germany must pay, but requiring her to 
 acknowledge full liability. The disadvantages of 
 this method were apparent to the President and 
 
 1 At first the French and British refused to name any specific 
 sum that might be collected from Germany, requesting the Amer 
 icans to submit estimates. The latter named $5,000,000,000 as 
 representing a sum that might be collected prior to May 1, 1921, 
 and thereafter a capital sum as high as $25,000,000,000, al 
 ways provided that the other clauses in the treaty did not too 
 greatly drain Germany s resources. After some weeks of discus 
 sion the French experts stated that if the figures could be revised 
 up to $40,000,000,000 they would recommend them to their chiefs. 
 The British refused to accept a figure below $47,000,000,000. 
 
302 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 his financial advisers, for it was clear that the 
 economic stability of the world could not be re 
 stored until the world knew how much Germany 
 was going to pay. 
 
 Equally difficult was the problem of the French 
 frontier. The return of Alsace-Lorraine to France 
 was unanimously approved. The French claimed 
 in addition, the districts of the Saar, with their 
 valuable coal-fields, a portion of which had been 
 left to France after the first abdication of Napoleon 
 but annexed to Prussia after his defeat at Water 
 loo; and they contended that if the German terri 
 tories west of the Rhine were not to be annexed to 
 France, they must at least be separated from Ger 
 many, which had secured a threatening military 
 position mainly through their possession. Amer 
 ican experts had felt inclined to grant a part of 
 the Saar region to France as compensation for the 
 wanton destruction of French mines at Lens and 
 Valenciennes by the Germans; but both Wilson and 
 Lloyd George were opposed to absolute annexation 
 of the district which the French demanded, includ 
 ing, as it did, more than six hundred thousand Ger 
 mans and no French. Wilson was definitely hostile 
 to any attempt to separate from the Fatherland 
 such purely German territory as that on the left 
 
BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE? SOS 
 
 bank of the Rhine. The Allies, as well as himself, 
 had given assurances that they did not aim at the 
 dismemberment of Germany, and it was on the basis 
 of such assurances that the Germans had asked for 
 an armistice. Wilson admitted that from the point 
 of view of military strategy the argument of Foch 
 was unanswerable, under the old conditions; but he 
 insisted that the League of Nations would obviate 
 the necessity of the strategic protection asked for. 
 The struggle over these issues nearly broke the 
 back of the Conference. If Clemenceau had 
 yielded in January when the League was demanded 
 by Wilson, it was with the mental reservation that 
 when the "practical" issues came up, the victory 
 should be his. The French press were not slow to 
 give support to their Government, and within a 
 short time the President, so recently a popular idol, 
 found himself anathematized as a pro-German and 
 the sole obstacle to a speedy and satisfactory peace. 
 The more noisy section of the British press followed 
 suit. Liberals were silenced and American idealism 
 was cursed as meddlesome myopia. For some days 
 the deadlock appeared interminable and likely to 
 become fatal. In a contest of obstinacy even Wil 
 son could be matched by Clemenceau. The in 
 creasing bitterness of French attacks upon the 
 
304 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Americans began to tell upon Wilson; for the first 
 time his physical strength seemed likely to collapse 
 under the strain. Matters were brought to a head 
 by a bold stroke, on the 7th of April, when Wilson 
 ordered the George Washington to sail for Brest. 
 The inference was plain : the President would leave 
 the Conference unless the Allies abated their claims. 
 
 The week of strain was followed by one of ad 
 justment. Fearing an open break with America, 
 Allied leaders showed themselves anxious to find a 
 compromise, and Wilson himself was willing to 
 meet them part way, since he realized that without 
 France and England his new international system 
 could never operate. Colonel House found oppor 
 tunity for his tested skill and common sense as a 
 mediator, and he was assisted by Tardieu, who 
 proved himself to be fertile in suggestions for a 
 practical middle course. As in the case of all com 
 promises, the solutions satisfied no one completely. 
 But clearly some sort of treaty had to be framed, 
 if the world were to resume normal life and if the 
 spread of social revolution were to be checked. 
 At least the compromises had the virtue of win 
 ning unanimity, without which Europe could not 
 be saved. 
 
 The indemnity problem was settled, at least for 
 
BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE? 305 
 
 the moment, by postponing a final definite state 
 ment of the total amount that Germany must 
 pay. It was decided that the sum of five billion 
 dollars (twenty billion gold marks), in cash or kind, 
 should be demanded from Germany as an initial 
 payment, to be made before May 1, 1921. Cer 
 tain abatements were to be permitted the Germans, 
 since this sum was to include the expenses of the 
 army of occupation, which were reckoned as in 
 the neighborhood of a billion dollars; and supplies 
 of food and raw materials, which Germany might 
 need to purchase, could be paid for out of that sum. 
 In the second place, Germany was required to de 
 liver interest-bearing bonds to a further amount of 
 ten billions; and, if the initial payment of cash fell 
 short of five billions by reason of permitted deduc 
 tions, the amount of bonds was to be so increased 
 as to bring the total payments in cash, kind, or 
 bonds, up to fifteen billions by May 1, 1921. If a 
 Reparations Commission, the decisions of which 
 Germany must agree to accept, should be satisfied 
 that more yet could be paid, a third issue of bonds, 
 amounting to a further ten billions might be ex 
 acted. Even this total of twenty-five billions was 
 not to be regarded as final, if Germany s capacity 
 to pay more were determined by the Reparations 
 
306 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Commission. Germany was required to acknowl 
 edge full liability, and the total sum which she 
 might theoretically have to pay was reckoned by a 
 British expert as between thirty-two and forty- 
 four billions. The Reparations Commission, how 
 ever, was given the power to recommend abate 
 ments as well as increased payments; upon the wis 
 dom of its members the practical application of the 
 treaty would obviously depend. * 
 
 In truth the reparations clauses of the treaty, 
 which compelled Germany to hand over what was 
 practically a blank check to the Allies, represented 
 no victory for Wilson. But he had at least pre 
 vented the imposition of the crushing indemnities 
 that had been proposed, and which must have been 
 followed by political and economic consequences 
 hardly short of disastrous. As for the eastern fron 
 tier of France, it was agreed that the right of prop 
 erty in the coal mines of the Saar district should 
 be given outright to France, as partial but imme 
 diate compensation for the damage done at Lens and 
 
 1 The proposal of a permanent commission for handling the 
 whole matter of reparations was made first by an American finan 
 cial adviser, John Foster Dulles. The idea was accepted by Lloyd 
 George and Clemenceau as an efficacious method of enabling them 
 to postpone the decision of a definite sum to be paid by Germany 
 until the political situation in France and Great Britain should be 
 more favorable. 
 
BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE ? 307 
 
 elsewhere. But the district itself was to be placed 
 under the League of Nations and a plebiscite at the 
 end of fifteen years was to determine its final des 
 tiny. The territory on the left bank of the Rhine 
 was left to Germany, but it was to be demilitarized 
 entirely, a condition which also applied to a zone 
 fifty kilometers broad to the east of the Rhine. 
 The bridgeheads on the Rhine, as well as the Ger 
 man districts to the west of the river, were to be oc 
 cupied for periods extending from five to fifteen 
 years, in order to ensure the execution of the treaty 
 by the Germans. The French press contended that 
 Clemenceau had made over-great concessions, pro 
 testing that the League would be utterly unable to 
 protect France against sudden attack, especially 
 since the Covenant had not provided for a general 
 military force. In return for these concessions by 
 Clemenceau, Wilson gave an extraordinary quid 
 pro quo. He who had declaimed vigorously against 
 all special alliances now agreed that until the 
 League was capable of offering to France the pro 
 tection she asked, there should be a separate treaty 
 between France, Great Britain, and the United 
 States, according to which the two latter powers 
 should promise to come to the defense of France 
 in case of sudden and unprovoked attack by 
 
308 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Germany. The treaty did not, according to Wil 
 son, constitute a definite alliance but merely an 
 "undertaking," but it laid him open to the charge 
 of serious inconsistency. 
 
 Thus was passed, by means of compromise, the 
 most serious crisis of the Conference. In France 
 Wilson never recovered the popularity which he 
 then lost by his opposition to French demands. In 
 many quarters of Great Britain and the United 
 States, on the other hand, he was attacked by liber 
 als for having surrendered to the forces of reaction. 
 In the Conference, however, he had maintained his 
 prestige, and most moderates who understood the 
 situation felt that he had done as well as or better 
 than could be expected. He had by no means had 
 his way in the matter of reparations or frontiers, 
 but he had gone far towards a vindication of his 
 principles by avoiding a defeat under circumstances 
 where the odds were against him. More he prob 
 ably could not have obtained and no other Amer 
 ican at that time could have secured so much. The 
 sole alternative would have been for the American 
 delegates to withdraw from the Conference. Such 
 a step might have had the most disastrous conse 
 quences. It was true, or Europe believed it to 
 be true, that the Conference represented for the 
 
BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE ? 309 
 
 moment the single rallying-point of the elements of 
 social order on the Continent. The withdrawal of 
 the Americans would have shattered its waning 
 prestige, discouraged liberals in every country, and 
 perhaps have led to its dissolution. Nearly every 
 one in Paris was convinced that the break-up of 
 the Conference would be the signal for widespread 
 communistic revolt throughout central Europe. 
 By his broad concessions President Wilson had 
 sacrificed some of his principles, but he had held 
 the Conference together, the supreme importance 
 of which seemed at the time difficult to over-em 
 phasize. Having weathered this crisis the Confer 
 ence could now meet the storms that were to arise 
 from the demands of the Italians and the Japanese. 
 Wilson himself was to be encouraged in the midst 
 of those difficulties by the triumph accorded him on 
 the 28th of April. On that day the plenary ses 
 sion of the Conference adopted without a word of 
 dissent the revised Covenant of the League of 
 Nations, including the amendment that formally 
 recognized the validity of the Monroe Doctrine. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE SETTLEMENT 
 
 PRESIDENT WILSON S success in securing approval 
 for the League as the basis of the Peace Treaty was 
 his greatest triumph at Paris; and it was accentu 
 ated by the acceptance of certain of the amend 
 ments that were demanded in America, while those 
 which the French and Japanese insisted upon were 
 discarded or postponed. In comparison with this 
 success, he doubtless regarded his concessions in 
 the matter of reparations and the special Franco- 
 British-American alliance as mere details. His 
 task, however, was by no means completed, since 
 Italian and Japanese claims threatened to bring on 
 crises of almost equal danger. 
 
 From the early days of the Conference there had 
 been interested speculation in the corridors of the 
 Quai d Or say as to whether the promises made to 
 Italy by the Entente Powers in 1915, which were 
 incorporated in the secret Treaty of London, would 
 
 310 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 311 
 
 be carried into effect by the final peace settlement. 
 That treaty had been conceived in the spirit of old- 
 time diplomacy and had assigned to Italy districts 
 which disinterested experts declared could not be 
 hers except upon the principle of the spoils to the 
 strong. Much of the territories promised in the 
 Tyrol, along the Julian Alps, and on the Adriatic 
 coast was inhabited entirely by non-Italians, whose 
 political and economic fortunes were bound up 
 with states other than Italy; justice and wisdom 
 alike seemed to dictate a refusal of Italian claims. 
 The annexation of such districts by Italy, the ex 
 perts agreed, would contravene directly the right 
 of self-determination and might lead to serious 
 difficulties in the future. Would the President 
 sanction the application of treaties consummated 
 without the knowledge of the United States and in 
 defiance of the principles upon which he had de 
 clared that peace must be made? The applica 
 tion of the Treaty of London, furthermore, would 
 be at the expense, chiefly, of the Jugoslavs, that 
 is, a small nation. The Allies, as well as Wilson, 
 had declared that the war had been waged and 
 that the peace must be drafted in defense of the 
 rights of smaller nationalities. Justice for the 
 weak as for the strong was the basis of the new 
 
312 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 international order which Wilson was striving 
 to inaugurate. 
 
 Had the struggle been simply over the validity 
 of the Treaty of London, Wilson s position would 
 have been difficult enough, for the Premiers of 
 France and Great Britain had declared that they 
 could do nothing else but honor the pledges given 
 in 1915. But Italian opinion had been steadily 
 aroused by a chauvinist press campaign to demand 
 not merely the application of the Treaty of London 
 but the annexation of Fiume, which the treaty as 
 signed to the Jugoslavs. To this demand both the 
 British and French were opposed, although they 
 permitted Wilson to assume the burden of denying 
 Italian claims to Fiume. As time went on, Or 
 lando and Sonnino pressed for a decision, even 
 threatening that unless their demands were satis 
 fied, Italy would have nothing to do with the Ger 
 man treaty. Finally, on the 23d of April, the crisis 
 came to a head. On that day the President pub 
 lished a statement setting forth the American posi 
 tion, which he felt had been entirely misrepresented 
 by a propagandist press. Emphasizing the fact 
 that Italian claims were inconsistent with the prin 
 ciples upon which all the Allies had agreed, as 
 necessary to the future tranquillity of the world, he 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 313 
 
 appealed directly to the Italian people to join with 
 the United States in the application of those prin 
 ciples, even at the sacrifice of what seemed their 
 own interest. 
 
 The appeal was based upon sound facts. Its 
 statements were approved publicly by allied ex 
 perts who knew the situation, and privately by 
 Clemenceau and Lloyd George. It had been dis 
 cussed in the Council of Four and by no means 
 took Orlando by surprise. But it gave Orlando an 
 opportunity for carrying out his threat of retiring 
 from the Conference. Insisting that Wilson had 
 appealed to the Italian people over his head and 
 that they must choose between him and the Presi 
 dent, he set forth at once for Rome, followed by 
 the other Italian commissioners, although the eco 
 nomic experts remained at Paris. Orlando was 
 playing a difficult game. He was hailed in Rome 
 as the defender of the sacred rights of Italy, but in 
 Paris he lacked partners. Both the British and 
 French agreed with Wilson that Italy ought not to 
 have Fiume. They secretly regretted the promises 
 of the London Treaty, although they were prepared 
 to keep their word, and they were by no means in 
 clined to make further concessions in order to bring 
 Orlando and his colleagues back. After a few days 
 
314 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 of hesitation, they decided to go on with the Ger 
 man treaty and to warn the Italians that, if they 
 persisted in absenting themselves from the Con 
 ference, their withdrawal would be regarded as a 
 breach of the Treaty of London which stipulated a 
 common peace with the enemy. They also decided 
 that Italy could not expect to share in German rep 
 arations if her delegates were not present to sign 
 the German treaty. Such arguments could not 
 fail to weigh heavily with the Italian delegates, 
 even at the moment when the Italian press and 
 people were giving them enthusiastic encourage 
 ment to persist in their uncompromising course. 
 On the 5th of May Orlando left Rome to resume 
 his place in the Peace Conference. 
 
 In the meantime the Japanese had taken advan 
 tage of the embarrassment caused by the Italian 
 withdrawal, to put forward their special claims in 
 the Far East. During the early days of the Con 
 ference they had played a cautious game, as we 
 have seen, attending meetings but taking no de 
 cided stand upon European matters. They had 
 even refused to press to the limit the amendment 
 to the League Covenant which enunciated their 
 favorite principle of the equality of races. But now 
 they insisted that on one point, at least, Japanese 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 315 
 
 claims must be listened to; their right of inherit 
 ance to the German lease of Kiau-Chau and eco 
 nomic privileges in the Shantung peninsula must 
 receive recognition. This claim had long been ap 
 proved secretly by the British and French; it had 
 even been accepted by the Chinese at the time 
 when Japan had forced the twenty-one demands 
 upon her. It was disapproved, however, by the 
 American experts in Paris, and Wilson argued 
 strongly for more generous treatment of China. 
 His strategic position, one must admit, was not 
 nearly so strong as in the Fiume controversy. In 
 the latter he was supported, at least covertly, by 
 France and England, whose treaty with Italy ex 
 plicitly denied her claim to Fiume. The Japan 
 ese threat of withdrawal from the Conference, if 
 their claims were not satisfied, carried more real 
 danger with it than that of the Italians; if the 
 Japanese delegates actually departed making the 
 second of the big five to go, the risk of a complete 
 debacle was by no means slight. Even assuming 
 that justice demanded as strong a stand for the 
 Chinese as Wilson had taken for the Jugoslavs, the 
 practical importance of the Shantung question in 
 Europe was of much less significance. The eyes of 
 every small nation of Europe were upon Fiume, 
 
316 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 which was regarded as the touchstone of Allied pro 
 fessions of justice. If the Allied leaders permitted 
 Italy to take Fiume, the small nations would scoff 
 at all further professions of idealism; they would 
 take no further interest either in the Conference or 
 its League. Whereas, on the other hand, the small 
 nationalities of Europe knew and cared little about 
 the justice of Chinese pleas. 
 
 Such considerations may have been in the mind 
 of the President when he decided to yield to Japan. 
 The decision throws interesting light upon his char 
 acter; he is less the obstinate doctrinaire, more 
 the practical politician than has sometimes been 
 supposed. The pure idealist would have remained 
 consistent in the crisis, refused to do an injustice in 
 the Far East as he had refused in the settlement of 
 the Adriatic, and would have taken the risk of 
 breaking up the Conference and destroying all 
 chance of the League of Nations. Instead, Wilson 
 yielded to practical considerations of the moment. 
 The best that he could secure was the promise of 
 the Japanese to retire from the peninsula, a promise 
 the fulfillment of which obviously depended upon 
 the outcome of the struggle between liberal and 
 conservative forces in Japan, and which according 
 ly remained uncertain. He was willing to do what 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 317 
 
 he admitted was an injustice, in order to assure 
 what seemed to him the larger and the more certain 
 justice that would follow the establishment of the 
 League of Nations. 
 
 The settlement of the Shantung problem re 
 moved the last great difficulty in completing the 
 treaty with Germany, and on the 7th of May the 
 German delegates appeared to receive it. Nearly 
 eight weeks of uncertainty followed, taken up with 
 the study of German protests, the construction of 
 the treaty with Austria, and finally the last crisis 
 that preceded the signature. The terms were dras 
 tic and the German Government, in the persons of 
 Scheidemann, the Premier, and Brockdorff-Rant- 
 zau, Minister for Foreign Affairs, seemed deter 
 mined that, helpless as she was, Germany should 
 not accept them without radical modifications. 
 Their protests touched chiefly upon the economic 
 clauses and reparations, the solution of the Saar 
 problem, the cession of so much German territory 
 to Poland, and the exclusion of Germany from the 
 League of Nations. Ample opportunity was given 
 their delegates to formulate protests, which, al 
 though they rarely introduced new facts or argu 
 ments that had not been discussed, were carefully 
 studied by Allied experts. Week after week passed . 
 
318 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 In certain quarters among the Allies appeared a 
 tendency to make decided concessions in order to 
 win the consent of the German delegates. No one 
 wanted to carry out an invasion of the defeated 
 country, and there was no guarantee that a mili 
 tary invasion would secure acquiescence. Ger 
 many s strength was in sitting still, and she might 
 thus indefinitely postpone the peace. Was it not 
 the wise course, one heard whispered in Paris, to 
 sugar the bitterness of the treaty and thus win 
 Germany s immediate signature? 
 
 Early in June, Lloyd George, evidently under 
 pressure from his Cabinet, declared himself for a 
 decided "softening" of the peace terms in order to 
 secure the acceptance of the enemy. What would 
 Wilson do? He had been anathematized at home 
 and abroad as pro-German and desirous of saving 
 Germany from the consequences of her misdeeds; 
 here was his chance. Would he join with the Brit 
 ish in tearing up this treaty, which after four 
 months of concentrated effort had just been com 
 pleted, in order to secure the soft peace that he was 
 supposed to advocate? His attitude in this con 
 tingency showed his ability to preserve an even bal 
 ance. In the meeting of the American delegation 
 that was called to consider the British proposal, 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 319 
 
 he pronounced himself as strongly in favor of 
 any changes that would ensure more complete jus 
 tice. If the British and French would consent to a 
 definite and moderate sum of reparations (a con 
 sent which he knew was out of the question) he 
 would gladly agree. But he would not agree to any 
 concessions to Germany that were not based upon 
 justice, but merely upon the desire to secure her 
 signature. He was not in favor of any softening 
 which would mar the justice of the settlement as 
 drafted. "We did not come over," he said, "sim 
 ply to get any sort of peace treaty signed. We 
 came over to do justice. I believe, even, that a 
 hard peace is a good thing for Germany herself, in 
 order that she may know what an unjust war 
 means. We must not forget what our soldiers 
 fought for, even if it means that we may have to 
 fight again." Wilson s stand for the treaty as 
 drafted proved decisive. Certain modifications in 
 details were made, but the hasty and unwise en 
 thusiasm of Lloyd George for scrapping entire sec 
 tions was not approved. The Conference could 
 hardly have survived wholesale concessions to Ger 
 many: to prolong the crisis would have been a 
 disastrous confession of incompetence. For what 
 confidence could have been placed in statesmen 
 
320 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 who were so patently unable to make and keep 
 their minds? 
 
 Still the German Government held firm and re 
 fused to sign. Foch inspected the Allied troops on 
 the Rhine and Pershing renounced his trip to Eng 
 land, in order to be ready for the invasion that had 
 been ordered if the time limit elapsed without sig 
 nature. Only at the last moment did the courage 
 of the Germans fail. A change of ministry brought 
 into power men who were willing to accept the in 
 evitable humiliation. On the 20th of June, the 
 guns and sirens of Paris announced Germany s ac 
 ceptance of the peace terms and their promise to 
 sign, and, surprising fact, a vast crowd gathered on 
 the Place de la Concorde to cheer Wilson; despite 
 his loss of popularity and the antagonism which he 
 had aroused by his opposition to national aspira 
 tions of one sort or another, he was still the man 
 whose name stood as symbol for peace. 
 
 Eight days later in the Hall of Mirrors at Ver 
 sailles, where forty-eight years before had been 
 born the German Empire, the delegates of the Al 
 lied states gathered to celebrate the obsequies of 
 that Empire. It was no peace of reconciliation, 
 this treaty between the new German Republic and 
 the victorious Allies. The hatred and distrust 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 321 
 
 inspired by five years of war were not so soon to 
 be liquidated. As the German delegates, awkward 
 and rather defiant in their long black frock coats, 
 marched to the table to affix their signatures, they 
 were obviously, in the eyes of the Allied delegates 
 and the hundreds of spectators, always "the en 
 emy." The place of the Chinese at the treaty table 
 was empty; for them it was no peace of justice that 
 gave Shantung to the Japanese, and they would 
 not sign. The South African delegate, General 
 Smuts, could not sign without explaining the bal 
 ance of considerations which led him to sanction an 
 international document containing so many flaws. 
 It was not, indeed, the complete peace of justice 
 which Wilson had promised and which, at times, 
 he has since implied he believed it to be. Belgians 
 complained that they had not been given the left 
 bank of the Scheldt; Frenchmen were incensed be 
 cause their frontier had not been protected; Ital 
 ians were embittered by the refusal to approve 
 their claims on the Adriatic; radical leaders, the 
 world over, were frank in their expression of dis 
 appointment at the failure to inaugurate a new so 
 cial order. The acquiescence in Japanese demands 
 for Kiau-Chau was clearly dictated by expediency 
 rather than by justice. Austria, reduced in size 
 
322 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 and bereft of material resources, was cut off from 
 the sea and refused the possibility of joining with 
 Germany. The nationalistic ambitions of the 
 Rumanians, of the Jugoslavs, of the Czechoslovaks, 
 and of the Poles were aroused to such an extent 
 that conflicts could hardly be avoided. Hungary, 
 deprived of the rim of subject nationalities, looked 
 forward to the first opportunity of reclaiming her 
 sovereignty over them. The Ruthenians com 
 plained of Polish domination. Further to the east 
 lay the great unsettled problem of Russia. 
 
 But the most obvious flaws in the treaty are to 
 be found in the economic clauses. It was a mistake 
 to compel Germany to sign a blank check in the 
 matter of reparations. Germany and the world 
 needed to know the exact amount that was to be 
 paid, in order that international commerce might 
 be set upon a stable basis. The extent of control 
 granted to the Allies over German economic life 
 was unwise and unfair. 
 
 Complete justice certainly was not achieved by 
 President Wilson at Paris, and it may be ques 
 tioned whether all the decisions can be regarded 
 even as expedient. The spirit of the Fourteen 
 Points, as commonly interpreted, had not governed 
 the minds of those who sat at the council table. 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 323 
 
 The methods adopted by the Council of Ten and 
 the Council of Four were by no means those to 
 which the world looked forward when it hailed the 
 ideal expressed in the phrase, "Open covenants 
 openly arrived at." The "freedom of the seas," if 
 it meant the disappearance of the peculiar position 
 held by Great Britain on the seas, was never seri 
 ously debated, and Wilson himself, in an interview 
 given to the London Times, sanctioned "Britain s 
 peculiar position as an island empire." Adequate 
 guarantees for the reduction of armaments were 
 certainly not taken at Paris ; all that was definitely 
 stipulated was the disarmament of the enemy, a 
 step by no means in consonance with the Presi 
 dent s earlier policy which aimed at universal dis 
 armament. An "absolutely impartial adjustment 
 of all colonial claims" was hardly carried out by 
 granting the German colonies to the great powers, 
 even as mandatories of the League of Nations. 
 
 Nevertheless the future historian will probably 
 hold that the Peace Conference, with all its selfish 
 interests and mistakes, carried into effect an amaz 
 ingly large part of President Wilson s programme, 
 when all the difficulties of his position are duly 
 weighed. The territorial settlements, on the whole, 
 translated into fact the demands laid down by the 
 
324 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 more special of Wilson s Fourteen Points. France^ 
 Belgium, and the other invaded countries were, 
 of course, evacuated and their restoration promised; 
 Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France and the 
 wrong of 1871 thus righted; an independent Poland 
 was recognized and given the assured access to the 
 sea that Wilson had insisted upon; the subject na 
 tionalities of Austria-Hungary received not merely 
 autonomy but independence. Even as regards the 
 larger principles enunciated in the Fourteen Point s, 
 it may at least be argued that President Wilson se 
 cured more than he lost. Open diplomacy in the 
 sense of conducting international negotiations in 
 an open forum was not the method of the Peace 
 Conference; and it may not be possible or even de 
 sirable. The article in the Covenant, however, 
 which insists upon the public registration of all 
 treaties before their validity is recognized, goes far 
 towards a fulfillment of the President s pledge of 
 open covenants, particularly if his original meaning 
 is liberally interpreted. Similarly the Covenant 
 makes provision for the reduction of armaments. 
 If the treaty did not go far in assuring the "re 
 moval of economic barriers," at all events the 
 Conference did much to provide for an interna 
 tional control of traffic which would ensure to 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 325 
 
 all European countries, so far as possible, equal 
 facilities for forwarding their goods. 
 
 Apart from the Fourteen Points Wilson had em 
 phasized two other principles as necessary to a just 
 and permanent peace. The first of these was that 
 the enemy should be treated with a fairness equal 
 to that accorded to the Allies; the second was the 
 principle that peoples should have the right to 
 choose the government by which they were to be 
 ruled the principle of self-determination. Nei 
 ther of these principles received full recognition in 
 the peace settlement. Yet their spirit was infused 
 more completely throughout the settlement than 
 would have been the case had not Wilson been at 
 Paris, and to that extent the just and lasting quali 
 ties of the peace were enhanced. In the matter of 
 German reparations the question of justice was not 
 the point at issue; the damage committed by Ger 
 many surpassed in value anything that the Allies 
 could exact from her. As to frontiers, the un 
 biased student will probably admit that full jus 
 tice was done Germany when the aspirations of 
 France for annexation of the Saar district and the 
 provinces on the left bank of the Rhine were disap 
 pointed; it was the barest justice to France, on the 
 other hand, that she should receive the coal mines 
 
326 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 of the former district and that the latter should be 
 demilitarized. In the question of Danzig, and the 
 Polish corridor to the sea, it was only fair to Poland 
 that she receive the adequate outlet which was 
 necessary to her economic life and which had been 
 promised her, even if it meant the annexation of 
 large German populations, many of which had been 
 artificially brought in as colonists by the Berlin 
 Government; and in setting up a free city of Dan 
 zig, the Conference broke with the practices of old 
 style diplomacy and paid a tribute to the rights of 
 peoples as against expediency. The same may be 
 said of the decision to provide for plebiscites in East 
 Prussia and in upper Silesia. On the other hand, 
 the refusal to permit the incorporation of the new, 
 lesser Austria within Germany was at once unjust 
 and unwise a concession to the most shortsighted 
 of old-style diplomatic principles. 
 
 In the reorganization of the former Hapsburg 
 territories, Wilsonian principles were always in the 
 minds of the delegates, although in a few cases 
 they were honored more in the breach than in the 
 observance. Wilson himself surrendered to Italy 
 extensive territories in the Tyrol south of the Bren 
 ner which, if he had followed his own professions, 
 would have been left to Austria. A large Jugoslav 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 327 
 
 population on the Julian Alps and in Istria was 
 placed under Italian rule. The new Czechoslovak 
 state includes millions of Germans and Magyars. 
 The boundaries of Rumania were extended to in* 
 elude many non-Rumanian peoples. Bulgars were 
 sacrificed to Greeks and to Serbs. In the settle 
 ment of each problem the balance always inclined 
 a little in favor of the victors. But the injustices 
 committed were far less extensive than might have 
 been expected, and in most cases where popula 
 tions were included under alien rule, the decision 
 was based less on political considerations than on 
 the practical factors of terrain, rivers, and railroads 
 which must always be taken into consideration in 
 the drawing of a frontier. Wherever the issue was 
 clean-cut, as for example between the selfish na 
 tionalism of the Italians in their Adriatic demands 
 and the claim to mere economic life of the Jugo 
 slavs, the old rule which granted the spoils to the 
 stronger power was vigorously protested. 
 
 Whatever the mistakes of the Conference, Wil 
 son secured that which he regarded as the point of 
 prime importance, the League of Nations. This, 
 he believed, would remedy the flaws and eradicate 
 the vices of the treaties. No settlement, however 
 perfect at the moment, could possibly remain 
 
328 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 permanent, in view of the constantly changing con 
 ditions. What was necessary was an elasticity that 
 would permit change as change became necessary. 
 If the disposition of the Saar basin, for example, 
 proved to be so unwise or unjust as to cause danger 
 of violence, the League would take cognizance of 
 the peril and provide a remedy. If the boundaries 
 of eastern Germany gave undue advantage to the 
 Poles, the League would find ways and means of 
 rectifying the frontier peacefully. If Hungary or 
 Czechoslovakia found themselves cut off from sea 
 ports, the League could hear and act upon their de 
 mands for freedom of transit or unrestricted access 
 to fair markets. That the League was necessary 
 for such and other purposes was recognized by 
 many notable economic experts and statesmen be 
 sides the President. Herbert Hoover insisted upon 
 the necessity of a League if the food problems of 
 central Europe were to be met, and Venizelos 
 remarked that "without a League of Nations, 
 Europe would face the future with despair in its 
 heart." Because he had the covenant of such an 
 association incorporated in the German treaty, 
 Wilson accepted all the mistakes and injustices 
 of the treaty as minor details and could say of 
 it, doubtless in all sincerity, "It s a good job." 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 329 
 
 Conscious of victory in the matter which he had 
 held closest to his heart, the President embarked 
 upon the George Washington on the 29th of June, 
 the day after the signing of the treaty, and set 
 forth for home. All that was now needed was the 
 ratification of the treaty by the Senate. 
 
CHAPTER 
 
 THE SENATE AND THE TREATY 
 
 NEITHER President Wilson nor those who had been 
 working with him at Paris seriously feared that, 
 after securing the point of chief importance to him 
 at the Conference, he would fail to win support for 
 the League of Nations and the treaty at home. 
 They recognized, of course, that his political op 
 ponents in the Senate would not acquiesce without 
 a struggle. The Republicans were now in the ma 
 jority, and Henry Cabot Lodge, the new chairman 
 of the Committee on Foreign Relations, had gone 
 far in his efforts to undermine Wilson s policy at 
 Paris. He had encouraged the Italians in their im 
 perialistic designs in the Adriatic and had done his 
 best to discredit the League of Nations. Former 
 Progressive Senators, such as Johnson and Borah, 
 who like Lodge made personal hostility to Wilson 
 the chief plank in their political programme, had de 
 clared vigorously their determination to prevent the 
 
 330 
 
THE SENATE AND THE TREATY 331 
 
 entrance of the United States into a League. The 
 Senators as a whole were not well-informed upon 
 foreign conditions and Wilson had done nothing to 
 enlighten them. He had not asked their advice in 
 the formulation of his policy, nor had he supplied 
 them with the facts that justified the position he 
 had taken. Naturally their attitude was not likely 
 to be friendly, now that he returned to request 
 their consent to the treaty, and the approach of a 
 presidential election was bound to affect the action 
 of all ardent partisans. 
 
 Opposition was also to be expected in the coun 
 try. There was always the ancient prejudice 
 against participation in European affairs, which 
 had not been broken even by the events of the past 
 two years. The people, even more than the Senate, 
 were ignorant of foreign conditions and failed to 
 understand the character of the obligations which 
 the nation would assume under the treaty and the 
 covenant of the League. There was genuine fear 
 lest the United States should become involved in 
 wars and squabbles in which it had no material in 
 terest, and lest it should surrender its independence 
 of action to a council of foreign powers. This 
 was accompanied by the belief that an irresponsi 
 ble President might commit the country to an 
 
332 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 adventurous course of action which could not be 
 controlled by Congress. The chief opposition to 
 the treaty and covenant, however, probably result 
 ed from the personal dislike of Wilson. This feeling, 
 which had always been virulent along the Atlantic 
 coast and in the industrial centers of the Middle 
 West, had been intensified by the President s ap 
 parent disregard of Congress. More than one man 
 of business argued that the treaty must be bad be 
 cause it was Wilson s work and the covenant worst 
 of all, since it was his pet scheme. One heard daily 
 in the clubs and on the golf-courses of New Eng 
 land and the Middle Atlantic States the remark: 
 "I know little about the treaty, but I know Wilson, 
 and I know he must be wrong." 
 
 And yet the game was probably in the Presi 
 dent s hands, had he known how to play it. Di 
 vided as it was on the question of personal devotion 
 to Wilson, the country was a unit in its desire for 
 immediate peace and normal conditions. Admit 
 ting the imperfections of the treaty, it was prob 
 ably the best that could be secured in view of the 
 conflicting interests of the thirty-one signatory 
 powers, and at least it would bring peace at once. 
 To cast it aside meant long delays and prolongation 
 of the economic crisis. The covenant of the League 
 
THE SENATE AND THE TREATY 333 
 
 might not be entirely satisfactory, but something 
 must be done to prevent war in the future; and if 
 this League proved unsatisfactory, it could be 
 amended after trial. Even the opposing Senators 
 did not believe that they could defeat the treaty 
 outright. They were warned by Republican finan 
 ciers, who understood international economic con 
 ditions, that the safety and prosperity of the world 
 demanded ratification, and that the United States 
 could not afford to assume an attitude of isola 
 tion even if it were possible. Broad-minded states 
 men who were able to dissociate partisan emotion 
 from intellectual judgment, such as ex-President 
 Taft, agreed that the treaty should be ratified as 
 promptly as possible. AH that Senator Lodge and 
 his associates really hoped for was to incorporate 
 reservations which would guarantee the independ 
 ence of American action and incidentally make it 
 impossible for the President to claim all the credit 
 for the peace. 
 
 Had the President proved capable of cooperating 
 with the moderate Republican Senators it would 
 probably have been possible for him to have saved 
 the fruits of his labor at Paris . An important group 
 honestly believed that the language of the covenant 
 was ambiguous in certain respects, particularly as 
 
334 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 regards the extent of sovereignty sacrificed by 
 the national government to the League, and the 
 diminution of congressional powers. This group 
 was anxious to insert reservations making plain 
 the right of Congress alone to declare war, de 
 fining more exactly the right of the United States 
 to interpret the Monroe Doctrine, and specifying 
 what was meant by domestic questions that should 
 be exempt from the cognizance of the League. 
 Had Wilson at once combined with this group and 
 agreed to the suggested reservations, he would in 
 all probability have been able to secure the two- 
 thirds vote necessary to ratification. The country 
 would have been satisfied; the Republicans might 
 have contended that they had "Americanized" the 
 treaty; and the reservations would probably have 
 been accepted by the co-signatories. It would have 
 been humiliating to go back to the Allies asking 
 special privileges, but Europe needed American as 
 sistance too much to fail to heed these demands. 
 After all America had gained nothing in the way of 
 territorial advantage from the war and was asking 
 for nothing in the way of reparations. 
 
 It was at this crucial moment that Wilson s pe 
 culiar temperamental faults asserted themselves. 
 Sorely he needed the sane advice of Colonel House, 
 
THE SENATE AND THE TREATY 335 
 
 who would doubtless have found ways of placating 
 the opposition. But that practical statesman was 
 in London and the President lacked the capacity to 
 arrange the compromise that House approved. 
 
 President Wilson alone either would not or could 
 not negotiate successfully with the middle group of 
 Republicans. He went so far as to initiate private 
 conferences with various Senators, a step indicat 
 ing his desire to avoid the appearance of the dicta 
 torship of which he was accused; but his attitude 
 on reservations that altered the meaning of any 
 portion of the treaty or covenant was unyielding, 
 and he even insisted that merely interpretative res 
 ervations should not be embodied in the text of 
 the ratifying resolution. The President evidently 
 hoped that the pressure of public opinion would 
 compel the Senate to yield to the demand for im 
 mediate peace and for guarantees against future 
 war. His appearance of rigidity, however, played 
 into the hands of the opponents of the treaty, who 
 dominated the Foreign Relations Committee of the 
 Senate. Senator Lodge, chairman of the commit 
 tee, adopted a stand which, to the Administration 
 at least, did not seem to be justified by anything 
 but a desire to discredit the work of Wilson. He 
 had, in the previous year, warmly advocated a 
 
336 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 League of Nations, but in the spring of 1919 he 
 had given the impression that he would oppose any 
 League for which Wilson stood sponsor. Thus he 
 had raised objections to the preliminary draft of 
 the covenant which Wilson brought from Paris in 
 February; but when Wilson persuaded the Allies 
 to incorporate some of the amendments then de 
 manded by Republican Senators, he at once found 
 new objections. He did not dare attack the League 
 as a principle, in view of the uncertainty of public 
 opinion on the issue; but he obviously rejoiced in 
 the President s inability to unite the Democrats 
 with the middle-ground Republicans, for whom 
 Senator McCumber stood as spokesman. 
 
 On the 19th of August a conference was held at 
 the White House, in which the President attempted 
 to explain to the Foreign Relations Committee 
 doubtful points and to give the reasons for various 
 aspects of the settlement. A careful study of the 
 stenographic report indicates that his answers to 
 the questions of the Republican Senators were 
 frank, and that he was endeavoring to remove the 
 unfortunate effects of his former distant attitude. 
 His manner, however, had in it something of the 
 schoolmaster, and the conference was fruitless. 
 Problems which had been studied for months by 
 
THE SENATE AND THE TREATY 337 
 
 experts of all the Powers, and to the solution of 
 which had been devoted long weeks of intelligent 
 discussion, were now passed upon superficially by 
 men whose ignorance of foreign questions was only 
 too evident, and who barely concealed their deter 
 mination to nullify everything approved by the 
 President. Hence, when the report of the com 
 mittee was finally presented on the 10th of Septem 
 ber, the Republican majority demanded no less 
 than thirty-eight amendments and four reserva 
 tions. A quarter of the report was not concerned 
 at all with the subject under discussion, but was 
 devoted to an attack upon Wilson s autocratic 
 methods and his treatment of the Senate. As was 
 pointed out by Senator McCumber, the single Re 
 publican who dissented from the majority report, 
 "not one word is said, not a single allusion made, 
 concerning either the great purposes of the League 
 of Nations or the methods by which these pur 
 poses are to be accomplished. Irony and sarcasm 
 have been substituted for argument and position? 
 taken by the press or individuals outside the Sen 
 ate seem to command more attention than the 
 treaty itself." 
 
 The President did not receive the popular sup 
 port which he expected, and the burst of popular 
 
338 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 wrath which he believed would overwhelm sena 
 torial opposition was not forthcoming. In truth 
 public opinion was confused. America was not 
 educated to understand the issues at stake. Wil 
 son s purposes at Paris had not been well reported 
 in the press, and he himself had failed to make plain 
 the meaning of his policy. It was easy for oppo 
 nents of the treaty to muddy discussion and to 
 arouse emotion where reason was desirable. The 
 wildest statements were made as to the effect of 
 the covenant, such as that entrance into the League 
 would at once involve the United States in war, 
 and that Wilson was sacrificing the interests of 
 America to the selfish desires of European states. 
 The same men who, a year before, had complained 
 that Wilson was opposing England and France, 
 now insisted that he had sold the United States to 
 those nations. They invented the catchword of 
 "one hundred per cent Americanism," the test of 
 which was to be opposition to the treaty. They 
 found strange coadjutors. The German- Ameri 
 cans, suppressed during the war, now dared to 
 emerge, hoping to save the Fatherland from the 
 effects of defeat by preventing the ratification of 
 the treaty; the politically active Irish found oppor 
 tunity to fulminate against British imperialism and 
 
THE SENATE AND THE TREATY 339 
 
 "tyranny" which they declared had been sanc 
 tioned by the treaty; impractical liberals, who were 
 disappointed because Wilson had not inaugurated 
 the social millennium, joined hands with out-and- 
 out reactionaries. But the most discouraging aspect 
 of the situation was that so many persons permit 
 ted their judgment to be clouded by their dislike 
 of the President s personality. However much they 
 might disapprove the tactics of Senator Lodge they 
 could not but sympathize to some extent with the 
 Senate s desire to maintain its independence, which 
 they believed had been assailed by Wilson. Discus 
 sions which began with the merits of the League of 
 Nations almost invariably culminated with vitriolic 
 attacks upon the character of W r oodrow Wilson. 
 
 In the hope of arousing the country to a clear de 
 mand for immediate peace based upon the Paris 
 settlement, Wilson decided to carry out the plan 
 formulated some weeks previous and deliver a 
 series of speeches from the Middle West to the 
 Pacific coast. He set forth on the 3d of September 
 and made more than thirty speeches. He was 
 closely followed by some of his fiercest opponents. 
 Senators Johnson and Borah, members of the For 
 eign Relations Committee, who might have been 
 expected to remain in Washington to assist in the 
 
340 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 consideration of the treaty by the Senate, followed 
 in Wilson s wake, attempting to counteract the ef 
 fect of his addresses, and incidentally distorting 
 many of the treaty s provisions, which it is chari 
 table to assume they did not comprehend. The im 
 pression produced by the President was varied, de 
 pending largely upon the political character of his 
 audience. East of the Mississippi he was received 
 with comparative coolness, but as he approached 
 the coast enthusiasm became high, and at Seattle 
 and Los Angeles he received notable ovations. 
 And yet in these hours of triumph as in the pre 
 vious moments of discouragement, farther east, he 
 must have felt that the issues were not clear. The 
 struggle was no longer one for a new international 
 order that would ensure peace, so much as a per 
 sonal conflict between Lodge and Wilson. Whether 
 the President were applauded or anathematized, 
 the personal note was always present. 
 
 It was evident, during the tour, that the nervous 
 strain was telling upon Wilson. He had been worn 
 seriously by his exertions in Paris, where he was 
 described by a foreign plenipotentiary as the hard 
 est worker in the Conference. The brief voyage 
 home, which was purposely lengthened to give him 
 better chance of recuperation, proved insufficient. 
 
THE SENATE AND THE TREATY 341 
 
 Forced to resume the struggle at the moment when 
 he thought victory was his, repudiated where he 
 expected to find appreciation, the tour proved to 
 be beyond his physical and nervous strength. At 
 Pueblo, Colorado, on the 25th of September, he 
 broke down and returned hastily to Washington. 
 Shortly afterwards the President s condition be 
 came so serious that his physicians forbade all po 
 litical conferences, insisting upon a period of com 
 plete seclusion and rest, which was destined to 
 continue for many months. 
 
 Thus at the moment of extreme crisis in the for 
 tunes of the treaty its chief protagonist was re 
 moved from the scene of action and the Democratic 
 forces fighting for ratification were deprived of ef 
 fective leadership. Had there been a real leader in 
 the Senate who could carry on the fight with vigor 
 and finesse, the treaty might even then have been 
 saved; but Wilson s system had permitted no 
 understudies. There was no one to lead and no one 
 to negotiate a compromise. From his sick-room, 
 where his natural obstinacy seemed to be intensi 
 fied by his illness, the President still refused to 
 consider any reservations except of a purely in 
 terpretative character, and the middle-ground 
 Republicans would not vote to ratify without 
 
342 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 "mild reservations," some of which seemed to him 
 more than interpretative. 
 
 Senatorial forces were roughly divided into four 
 groups. There were the "bitter-enders," typifiedby 
 Johnson, Borah, and Brandegee, who frankly want 
 ed to defeat the treaty and the League outright; 
 there were the "reservationists," most of whom, 
 like Lodge, wanted the same but did not dare say 
 so openly; there were the "mild reservationists," 
 most of whom were Republicans, who sincerely de 
 sired immediate peace and asked for no important 
 changes in the treaty; and finally there were those 
 who desired to ratify the treaty as it stood. The 
 last-named group, made up of Democrats, num 
 bered from forty-one to forty-four, and obviously 
 needed the assistance of the "mild reservation 
 ists," if they were to secure a two-thirds vote of the 
 Senate. During October, all the amendments 
 which the Foreign Relations Committee brought 
 forward were defeated through the combination of 
 the last two groups. Early in November, however, 
 fourteen reservations were adopted, the "mild 
 reservationists" voting with Senator Lodge, for 
 lack of any basis of compromise with the Demo 
 crats. The effect of these reservations would, 
 undoubtedly, have been to release the United 
 
THE SENATE AND THE TREATY 
 
 States from many of the obligations assumed by 
 other members, while assuring to it the benefits of 
 the League. The most serious of the reservations 
 was that concerned with Article X of the covenant, 
 which stated that the United States would assume 
 no obligations to preserve the territorial integrity 
 or political independence of any other country, or 
 to interfere in controversies between nations, unless 
 in any particular case Congress should so provide. 
 From the moment when Wilson first developed 
 his policy of international service, cooperative in 
 terference in order to prevent acts of aggression 
 by a strong against a weaker power had been the 
 chief point in his programme. It was contained in 
 his early Pan-American policy; it ran through his 
 speeches in the campaign of 1916; it was in the 
 Fourteen Points. It was his specific contribution 
 to the covenant in Paris. Article X was the one 
 point in the covenant which Wilson would not 
 consent to modify or, as he expressed it, see "nulli 
 fied." Just because it lay nearest Wilson s heart, 
 it was the article against which the most virulent 
 attacks of the "die-hards" were directed. 
 
 The President denounced the reservation on 
 Article X, as a "knife-thrust at the heart of the 
 covenant," and its inclusion in the ratifying 
 
344 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAE 
 
 resolution of the Senate, spelled the defeat of rati 
 fication. On the eve of voting he wrote to Senator 
 Hitchcock, leader of the Democratic forces in the 
 Senate, "I assume that the Senators only desire my 
 judgment upon the all-important question of the 
 resolution containing the many reservations of 
 Senator Lodge. On that I cannot hesitate, for, in 
 my opinion, the resolution in that form does not 
 provide for ratification but rather for nullification 
 of the treaty. I sincerely hope that the friends and 
 supporters of the treaty will vote against the Lodge 
 resolution of ratification." The "mild reserva- 
 tionists" led by McCumber voted with the Lodge 
 group for the resolution; but the "bitter-end 
 ers," combining with the supporters of the original 
 treaty, outnumbered them. The vote stood thirty- 
 nine in favor of the resolution and fifty -five against. 
 When a motion for unconditional ratification was 
 offered by Senator Underwood, it was defeated by 
 a vote of fifty-three to thirty-eight. 
 
 The Republicans on the Foreign Relations Com 
 mittee had succeeded far beyond the hopes of their 
 leaders in August. They had killed the treaty, but 
 in such an indirect fashion as to confuse the public 
 and to fix upon the President the blame for delay 
 ing the peace. It was easy to picture the obstinacy 
 
THE SENATE AND THE TREATY 345 
 
 of the President as the root of all the evil which re 
 sulted from the political and economic uncertainty 
 overhanging our European relations. So wide 
 spread was this feeling among his natural oppo 
 nents, that the Republican Senators began to as 
 sume a far loftier tone, and to laugh at the tardy 
 efforts of the Democrats to arrange a compromise. 
 When Senator Pomerene, after consultation with 
 Administration leaders, proposed the appointment 
 of a "committee of conciliation," to find a basis 
 of ratification that would secure the necessary 
 two-thirds vote, the motion was killed by forty- 
 eight to forty-two. Senator Lodge announced 
 that he would support the resolution suggested by 
 Knox, which would end the war by congressional 
 resolution and thus compel Wilson to negotiate a 
 separate treaty of peace with Germany. 
 
 Intelligent public opinion, however, was anxious 
 that the quarrels of the President and the Senate 
 should not be allowed to delay the settlement. 1 
 
 1 A straw vote taken in 311 colleges and including 158,000 stu 
 dents and professors showed an inclination to favor Wilson rather 
 than Lodge, but the greatest number approved compromise: four 
 per cent favored a new treaty with Germany; eight per cent 
 favored killing the Versailles treaty; only seventeen per cent ap 
 proved the Lodge programme; thirty per cent approved ratifica 
 tion of the treaty without change; and thirty-eight per cent 
 favored compromise. 
 
346 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Rightly or wrongly the people felt that the struggle 
 was largely a personal one between Lodge and Wil 
 son, and insisted that each must yield something 
 of their contention. On the one hand, ex-President 
 Taf t and others of the more far-seeing Republicans 
 worked anxiously for compromise, with the assist 
 ance of such men as Hoover, who perceived the 
 necessity of a League, but who were willing to 
 sacrifice its efficiency to some extent,- if only the 
 United States could be brought in. On the other 
 hand, various Democrats who were less directly 
 under Wilson s influence wanted to meet these 
 friends of the League half-way. During Decem 
 ber and January unofficial conferences between the 
 senatorial groups took place and progress towards 
 a settlement seemed likely. The Republicans 
 agreed to soften the language of their minor reser 
 vations, and Wilson even intimated that he would 
 consent to a mild reservation on Article X, al 
 though as he later wrote to Hitchcock, he felt 
 strongly that any reservation or resolution stating 
 that the "United States assumes no obligation 
 under such and such an article unless or except, 
 would chill our relationship with the nations with 
 whom we expect to be associated in this great en 
 terprise of maintaining the world s peace." It was 
 
THE SENATE AND THE TREATY 347 
 
 important "not to create the impression that we 
 are trying to escape obligations." 
 
 On the 31st of January the country was startled 
 by the publication of a letter written by Viscount 
 Grey, who had been appointed British Ambassador 
 to the United States, but who had returned to Eng 
 land after a four months stay, during which he had 
 been unable to secure an interview with the sick 
 President. In this letter he attempted to explain 
 to the British the causes of American hesitancy to 
 accept the League. He then went on to state that 
 the success of the League depended upon the ad 
 herence of the United States, and while admitting 
 the serious character of the reservations proposed 
 by Senator Lodge, insisted that American coopera 
 tion ought not to be refused because conditions were 
 attached. His views were unofficial, but it seemed 
 clear that they were approved by the British Cab 
 inet, and they received a chorus of endorsement 
 from the French and British press. 
 
 The publication of Grey s letter opened a path to 
 peace to both Senate and President had they been 
 willing to follow it. The Senate, by very slight 
 verbal softening of the language of its reservations, 
 the President by taking the British Ambassador at 
 his word, might have reached an agreement. The 
 
348 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Lodge group, however, which had shown some in 
 dications of a desire for compromise, was threat 
 ened by the "die-hards" who were determined to 
 defeat the treaty; fearing beyond everything to 
 break party unity, Lodge finally refused to alter the 
 language of the strong reservation on Article X, 
 which stated that the United States would assume 
 no obligation to preserve the independence of other 
 nations by military force or the use of its resources 
 or any form of economic discrimination, unless 
 Congress should first so provide. Inasmuch as the 
 economic outlawry of the offending state was the 
 means which Wilson chiefly counted upon, the 
 reservation took all practical significance from Ar 
 ticle X, since the delays resulting from congres 
 sional deliberation would prevent effective action. 
 The President, possibly believing that imperialist 
 elements abroad were not sorry to see Article X 
 nullified, refused to accept the resolution of ratifica 
 tion so long as it contained this reservation. "The 
 imperialist," he wrote, "wants no League of Na 
 tions, but if, in response to the universal cry of 
 masses everywhere, there is to be one, he is inter 
 ested to secure one suited to his own purposes, one 
 that will permit him to continue the historic game 
 of pawns and peoples the juggling of provinces, 
 
THE SENATE AND THE TREATY 349 
 
 the old balance of power, and the inevitable wars 
 attendant upon these things. The reservation pro 
 posed would perpetuate the old order. Does any 
 one really want to see the old game played again? 
 Can any one really venture to take part in reviv 
 ing the old order? The enemies of a League of Na 
 tions have by every true instinct centered their 
 efforts against Article X, for it is undoubtedly 
 the foundation of the whole structure. It is the 
 bulwark, and the only bulwark of the rising democ 
 racy of the world against the forces of imperialism 
 and reaction." 
 
 The deadlock was complete, and on March 19, 
 1920, when the vote on ratification was taken, the 
 necessary two-thirds were lacking by seven votes. 
 At the last moment a number of Democrats joined 
 with the Republican reservationists, making fifty- 
 seven in favor of ratification. On the other hand 
 the bitter-end Republicans voted against it with 
 the Democrats who stood by the President, thus 
 throwing thirty -seven votes against ratification. It 
 had taken the Peace Conference five months to 
 construct the treaty with Germany in all its com 
 plexities, and secure the unanimous approval of 
 the delegates of thirty-one states. The Senate 
 had consumed more than eight months merely 
 
350 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 in criticizing the treaty and had finally refused 
 to ratify it. 
 
 We are, perhaps, too close to the event to at 
 tempt any apportionment of responsibility for this 
 failure to cap our military successes by a peace 
 which when all has been said was the nearest 
 possible approach to the ideal peace. It is clear 
 that the blame is not entirely on one side. His 
 torians will doubtless level the indictment of igno 
 rance and political obliquity against the Senators 
 who tried, either directly or indirectly, to defeat 
 the treaty; they will find much justification for 
 their charge, although it will be more difficult to de 
 termine the dividing line between mere incapacity 
 to appreciate the necessities of the world, and the de 
 sire to discredit, at any cost, the work of Woodrow 
 Wilson. On the other hand, the President cannot 
 escape blame, although the charge will be merely 
 that of tactical incapacity and mistaken judgment. 
 His inability to combine with the moderate Repub 
 lican Senators first gave a chance to those who 
 wanted to defeat the treaty. His obstinate refusal 
 to accept reservations at the end, when it was 
 clear that the treaty could not be ratified without 
 them, showed a regard for form, at the expense of 
 practical benefit. Granted that the reservations 
 
THE SENATE AND THE TREATY 351 
 
 altered the character of the League or the charac 
 ter of American participation in it, some sort of a 
 League was essential and the sooner the United 
 States entered the better it would be. Its success 
 would not rest upon phrases, but upon the spirit of 
 the nations that composed it; the building-up of a 
 new and better international order would not be 
 determined by this reservation or that. Wilson s 
 claim to high rank as a statesmen would probably 
 be more clear if he had accepted what was possible 
 at the moment, in the hope that the League would 
 be improved as the country and the world became 
 better educated. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 BY the accident of history the Presidency of Wood- 
 row Wilson, which he designed to utilize for a series 
 of social reforms, was characterized by the su 
 preme importance of foreign affairs. Whatever the 
 significance of the legislative enactments of his first 
 year of office, he will be remembered as the neu 
 trality President, the war President, and the peace 
 President. Each phase of his administration rep 
 resents a distinct aspect of his policy and called 
 into prominence distinct aspects of his character. 
 It is the third, however, which gives to his admin 
 istration the place of importance which it will hold 
 in history; not merely because of the stamp which 
 he attempted to place upon the peace, but because 
 the two earlier phases are in truth expressive of his 
 whole-hearted devotion to the cause of peace. The 
 tenacity with which he held to neutrality in the 
 face of intense provocation resulted less from his 
 
 352 
 
CONCLUSION 353 
 
 appreciation of the pacific sentiments of the nation, 
 or a desire to assure its economic prosperity, than it 
 did from his instinctive abhorrence of war. When 
 finally forced into war, he based his action upon the 
 hope of securing a new international order which 
 would make war in the future impossible or less 
 frequent. In his mind the war was always waged 
 in order to ensure peace. 
 
 Whatever his mistakes or successes as neutrality 
 President or war President, therefore, it is as peace 
 President that he will be judged by history. In 
 evitably future generations will study with especial 
 attention the unfolding of his constructive peace 
 policy, from his declaration of the Fourteen Points 
 to the Peace Conference. In reality his policy of 
 international service, to be rendered by the strong 
 nations of the world in behalf of peace and of ab 
 solute justice toward the weaker nations, was de 
 veloped all through the year 1916. It was then 
 that he seized upon a League of Nations as the es 
 sential instrument. But the true significance of this 
 policy was hardly perceived before the speech of the 
 Fourteen Points, in January, 1918. That speech 
 gave to Wilson his position in the world, as preemi 
 nent exponent of the new ideals of international 
 relations. 
 23 
 
354 WOODEOW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 What the President demanded was nothing new. 
 The principle of justice, as the underlying basis of 
 intercourse between nations, has received wide sup 
 port at all epochs of history; the cause of interna 
 tional peace, as an ultimate ideal, has always been 
 advocated in the abstract; the idea of a League of 
 Nations has frequently been mooted. But it was 
 Wilson s fate to be ruler of a great nation at the 
 moment when the need of peace, justice, and in 
 ternational organization was more clearly demon 
 strated than ever before in the world s history. 
 Germany s cynical disregard of Belgian independ 
 ence, the horrors and waste of the war for which 
 Germany was chiefly responsible, the diplomatic 
 disorganization of Europe, which permitted this 
 world disaster, desired by merely a handful of fire 
 brands all these tragic and pitiful facts had been 
 burned into the mind of the age. There was a 
 definite determination that a recurrence of such 
 catastrophes should not be permitted. The peri 
 od of the war will be regarded by future histo 
 rians as one of transition from the international 
 chaos of the nineteenth century to an organiza 
 tion of nations, which, however loose, should 
 crystallize the conscience of the world, preserve its 
 peace, and translate into international politics the 
 
CONCLUSION 355 
 
 standards of morality which have been set up for 
 the individual. 
 
 In this transition President Wilson played a part 
 of the first importance. His r61e was not so much 
 that of the executive leader as of the prophet. He 
 was not the first to catch the significance of the 
 transition, nor did he possess the executive quali 
 ties which would enable him to break down all ob 
 stacles and translate ideals into facts. But he alone 
 of the notable statesmen of the world was able to 
 express adequately the ill-defined hopes of the 
 peoples of all nations. He gave utterance to the 
 words which the world had been waiting for, and 
 they carried weight because of his position. Alone 
 of the great powers the United States had no selfish 
 designs to hide behind fair promises of a better fu 
 ture. As President of the United States, Woodrow 
 Wilson might look for the confidence of Europe; 
 there was no European Government which could 
 arouse similar trust. So long as the war lasted, the 
 President s success as a prophet of the ideal was 
 assured, alike by his ability to voice inarticulate 
 hopes and by reason of his position as chief of 
 the most powerful and most disinterested nation of 
 the world. 
 
 But with the end of the war he faced a new task 
 
356 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 and one which was infinitely more difficult. The 
 flush of victory obliterated from the minds of many 
 in the Allied countries the high ideals which they 
 had nourished during the bitterness of the struggle. 
 The moment had arrived when practical advantage 
 might be taken from the defeat of the enemy, and 
 it seemed madness to surrender such advantage 
 for the sake of quixotic ideals. The statesmen of 
 Europe once more viewed affairs through the 
 colored prism of national selfishness. In America, 
 where Wilsonian ideals had at best been imper 
 fectly appreciated, men were wearied by interna 
 tional problems and longed for a return to the 
 simple complexity of the business life which they 
 understood. The President was confronted by a 
 double problem. He must win from Europe accept 
 ance of his programme, crystallized in the League 
 of Nations; from his fellow countrymen he must se 
 cure the support necessary if the United States 
 were to continue to play the r61e in world affairs 
 which she had undertaken during the war, and 
 which alone would make possible an effective 
 League of Nations. To meet the difficulties of the 
 task, President Wilson was imperfectly equipped. 
 He lacked the dynamic qualities of a Roose 
 velt, which might have enabled him to carry his 
 
CONCLUSION 357 
 
 opponents off their feet by an overwhelming rush; 
 he was not endowed with the tactical genius of a 
 skillful negotiator; he was, above all, handicapped 
 by the personal hostilities which he had aroused 
 at home. 
 
 In Europe the President achieved at least par 
 tial success. He proved unable to marshal the 
 forces of liberalism in such a way as to carry his 
 complete programme to victory, and the sacrifices 
 which he made to the spirit of selfish nationalism 
 cost him the support and the confidence of many 
 progressive elements, while they did not placate 
 the hostility of the reactionaries. But he secured 
 the League of Nations, the symbol and the instru 
 ment of the new international organization which 
 he sought. Thereby at least a beginning was made 
 in concrete form, which might later be developed, 
 when the force of the post-bellum reaction had 
 wasted itself. 
 
 At home, however, the forces of opposition 
 proved strong enough to rob the President of what 
 might have been a triumph. He lacked the ca 
 pacity to reconcile his personal and political op 
 ponents, as well as the ability to compromise with 
 the elements that were inclined to meet him half 
 way. In accordance with his basic principles he 
 
358 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 appealed from the politicians to the people. But 
 here again he failed, whether because of personal 
 unpopularity, or because of the poor publicity 
 which had been given his efforts at Paris, or be 
 cause of the physical breakdown which shattered 
 his persuasive powers and finally led to his retire 
 ment from the struggle. The vindication which 
 he sought in the presidential election of 1920 was 
 denied him. The country was tired of a Demo 
 cratic Administration and gave to the Republican 
 candidate an overwhelming plurality. The sole 
 comfort that Wilson could take, in the face of the 
 election returns, was that both candidates had de 
 clared for the principle of international organiza 
 tion and that the most distinguished supporters of 
 the successful Republican candidate had pledged 
 themselves to a League of Nations. 
 
 The months that followed the President s re 
 turn from Paris until the close of his administra 
 tion thus form a period of personal tragedy. He 
 had achieved a broad measure of success in Europe, 
 where the difficulties appeared stupendous, only to 
 have the cup dashed from his lips at the last mo 
 ment in his own country. The bitterness of the ex 
 perience was intensified by his physical helpless 
 ness. But we should lack perspective if we made 
 
CONCLUSION 359 
 
 the mistake of confusing personal tragedy with 
 failure. His work remained uncrowned, but there 
 was much that could never be undone. The ar 
 ticulate expression of the hopes of the world, which 
 President Wilson voiced during the war, remains 
 imperishable as a guide to this and future genera 
 tions. The League of Nations, weakened by the 
 absence of the United States but actually organized 
 and in operation, was the President s work. What 
 ever the fortunes of this particular League the 
 steps taken toward international cooperation by 
 its foundation can never be completely retraced. 
 
 W T oodrow Wilson, however, is not to be assessed 
 by his accomplishment. It is as prophet and not 
 as man of action that he will be regarded by his 
 tory. Like the prophets of old, like Luther or 
 Mazzini, he lacked the capacity for carrying to 
 practical success the ideal which he preached. But 
 to assume that he must accordingly be adjudged a 
 failure is to ignore the significance of the ideals to 
 which he awakened the world. Much there was 
 that was unattainable and intangible, but its value 
 to mankind in the development of international 
 relations may be inestimable. 
 
 Not on the vulgar mass 
 
 Called "work" must sentence pass, 
 
360 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 
 
 Things done, that took the eye and had the price . . . . 
 But all, the world s coarse thumb 
 And finger failed to plumb, 
 So passed in making up the main account; 
 All instincts immature, 
 All purposes unsure, 
 
 That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man s 
 amount. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 THUS far no adequate biography of President Wilson, 
 covering his career through the Peace Conference, has 
 been published. The most suggestive is Henry Jones 
 Ford s Woodrow Wilson: The Man and His Work 
 (1916) which stops with the close of the first term. 
 The author, a Princeton professor, is a warm personal 
 and political admirer of the President, but he makes 
 a definite attempt at critical appreciation. W. E. 
 Dodd s Woodrow Wilson and His Work (1920) is com 
 prehensive and brings the story to the end of the Peace 
 Conference, but it is marred by eulogistic interpreta 
 tion and anti-capitalistic bias. An interesting effort to 
 interpret the President to British readers in the form of 
 biography has been made by H. W. Harris in President 
 Wilson: His Problems and His Policy (1917). W. B. 
 Hale, in The Story of a Style (1920), attempts to analyze 
 the motives by which the President is inspired. But 
 the best material to serve this end is to be found in the 
 President s writings, especially Congressional Govern 
 ment (1885), An Old Master and Other Political Essays 
 (1893), Constitutional Government in the United States 
 (1908), The New Freedom (1913), International Ideals 
 (1919). The two last-named are collections of ad 
 dresses made in explanation and advocacy of his plans 
 of domestic and international reform. The most 
 
 361 
 
362 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 convenient edition of the President s official writings 
 and speeches is Albert Shaw s President Wilson s 
 State Papers and Addresses (1918), edited with an 
 analytical index. 
 
 For the period of neutrality a storehouse of facts is 
 to be found in The New York Times Current History, 
 published monthly. The American Year Book con 
 tains a succinct narrative of the events of each year, 
 which may be supplemented by that in the Annual 
 Register which is written from the British point of view. 
 A brief resume of Wilson s first term is contained in 
 F. A. Ogg s National Progress (1918). More detailed 
 is the first volume of J. B. McMaster s The United 
 States in the World War (1918), which is based upon 
 the newspapers and necessarily lacks perspective, 
 but is comprehensive and extremely useful for pur 
 poses of reference. The clearest outline of President 
 Wilson s treatment of foreign affairs is to be found 
 in E. E. Robinson and V. J. West s The Foreign Pol 
 icy of President Wilson, 1913-1917 (1917). The nar 
 rative is brief but interpretative and is followed by 
 numerous excerpts from the President s speeches and 
 state papers. The tone of the narrative is extremely 
 favorable and President Wilson is credited with con 
 sistency rather than capacity for development, but the 
 arrangement is excellent. More comprehensive is the 
 edition by J. B. Scott, entitled President Wilson s For- 
 eign Policy: Messages, Addresses, Papers (1918). 
 Johann von Bernstorff s My Three Years in America 
 (1920) is a well-reasoned apologia by the German Am 
 bassador, which contains information of much value; 
 it is not impossible for the critically minded to distin 
 guish the true from the false. The description of 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 363 
 
 German criminal activities contained in Horst von der 
 Goltz s My Adventures as a German Secret Agent (1917), 
 should be checked up with the report of the Senate 
 Committee of Inquiry into the German propaganda. 
 The Real Colonel House, by A. D. Howden-Smith 
 (1918), throws useful sidelights on Wilson and contains 
 valuable material on the activities of Colonel House as 
 negotiator before the entrance into the war of the 
 United States. 
 
 The best general narrative of America s war effort is 
 J. S. Bassett s Our War with Germany (1919); it is 
 clear and succinct, beginning with the early effects of 
 the war on the United States in 1914, and ending with 
 the Peace Conference. An interesting, but irritating, 
 account is to be found in George Creel s The War, the 
 World and Wilson (1920), which is passionate in its de 
 fense of the President, and blurs truth with inaccuracy 
 on almost every page. F. F. Kelly s What America 
 Did (1919) is a brief popular account of the building of 
 the army at home and abroad and the organization of 
 industry: clear, inaccurate, uncritical. The most con 
 venient summary of the organization of national re 
 sources is F. L. Paxson s "The American War Govern 
 ment," in The American Historical Review, October, 
 1920, which should be supplemented by the Handbook 
 of Economic Agencies for the War of 1917, monograph 
 No. 3 of the Historical Branch, War Plans Division, 
 General Staff (1919). The former contains many ref 
 erences in footnotes, of which the most important are 
 the Report of the Chief of Staff (1919) and the Report of 
 the Provost Marshal General (1919) . The published In 
 vestigation of the War Department, Hearing before the 
 Committee on Military Affairs (1918) is invaluable. 
 
364 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 The most complete information on ordnance is to be 
 found in the report of General Benedict Crowell, Amer 
 ica s Munitions, 1917-1918 (1919); it is an official de 
 fense and should be read critically. A graphic picture 
 of American accomplishments is given in L. P. Ayres s 
 The War with Germany; A Statistical Summary (1919). 
 The best account of operations in France is still Gen 
 eral Pershing s Report to the Secretary of War, which is 
 printed in New York Times Current History, January 
 and February, 1920. It may be supplemented by 
 Shipley Thomas s The History of the A. E. F. (1920). 
 
 The American point of view on the Peace Conference 
 is set forth authoritatively in What Really Happened at 
 Paris (1921), a collection of lectures delivered by mem 
 bers of the American Peace Commission and edited by 
 Edward M. House and Charles Seymour. Some Prob 
 lems of the Peace Conference (1920), by C. H. Haskins 
 and R. H. Lord, is an accurate and comprehensive 
 analysis of the territorial questions settled at Paris. 
 The British point of view and the most important 
 documents are given in A History of the Peace Confer 
 ence of Paris (1920), written chiefly by British dele 
 gates and edited by H. W. V. Temperley. The French 
 point of view is admirably presented in Andre Tar- 
 dieu s The Truth about the Treaty (1921). An excellent 
 picture of the conflict of interests and the manner in 
 which they were decided is to be found in C. T. Thomp 
 son s The Peace Conference Day by Day (1920). Rob 
 ert Lansing s The Peace Negotiations (1921) is inter 
 esting as giving the opinions of an American Com 
 missioner who disagreed with Mr. Wilson s methods 
 at Paris. J. M. Keynes s The Economic Consequences 
 of the Peace (1920) contains an economic analysis which 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 365 
 
 is more trustworthy than his brilliant, but misleading, 
 picture of the Conference. It should not be read ex 
 cept in company with the authoritative and accu 
 rate The Making of the Reparation and Economic 
 Clauses (1920), by B. M. Baruch. A clever but super 
 ficial criticism of President Wilson s peace policies is 
 to be found in J. M. Beck s The Passing of the New 
 Freedom (1920). 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adams, J. Q., and Monroe 
 Doctrine, 30 
 
 Adamson Act, 90 
 
 Adriatic coast, Italy s claims 
 on, 311; see also Fiume 
 
 Aircraft Production Board, 
 140 
 
 Airplanes, production for army, 
 134-35, 1S9-42 
 
 Alaska purchased from Russia, 
 31 
 
 Albert, King of Belgium, in 
 Paris, 255 
 
 Albert, Dr. H. F., and the 
 Wilhelmina, 43; and German 
 plots, 75; loses portfolio, 
 76 
 
 Algeciras Conference (1906), 
 34 
 
 Alien Property Custodian, 
 179 
 
 Alsace-Lorraine returned to 
 France, 302, 324 
 
 American Ambulance in 
 France, 67 
 
 American Expeditionary Force, 
 no provision at first for, 121; 
 Pershing sent to France, 
 122; plans for, 124-25; cen 
 tralization under Pershing, 
 148; training in France, 
 200-02; ports for, 202-03; 
 supply depots, 203; distri 
 bution of supplies, 203-04; 
 credit due, 225-27; defects, 
 226; see also Argonne, Cha 
 teau-Thierry, St. Mihiel 
 
 American Federation of Labor, 
 
 delegates aid in formation of 
 war labor policy, 182 
 
 American Protective League, 
 187 
 
 Ancona, torpedoed in Medi 
 terranean, 57 
 
 Arabia, submarine sinks, 56 
 
 Archibald, J. F. J., Dumba 
 makes use of, 77 
 
 Argentine, grain not available 
 for Europe, 159 
 
 Argonne, foreign artillery used 
 in, 134; plans for advance, 
 221; defensive importance 
 for Germans, 222; American 
 offensive, 222-23; see also 
 Meuse- Argonne 
 
 Arizona offered by Germany as 
 bribe to Mexico, 106 
 
 Armaments, Reduction of, 
 guarantees not taken at 
 Paris, 323; League Cove 
 nant provides, 324 
 
 Armand, Major, discusses 
 separate peace with Austria, 
 231 
 
 Armenian, submarine attack, 
 56 
 
 Armistice (Nov. 11, 1918), 
 224, 228; terms, 243 
 
 Army, General Staff, 119-20, 
 157, 188; American Expedi 
 tionary Force, 121, 122, 124 
 et seq., 148, 200-04, 225-27; 
 see also Argonne, Chateau- 
 Thierry, St. Mihiel; original 
 programme (1917), 121; 
 Roosevelt s request to com- 
 
 367 
 
368 
 
 INDEX 
 
 ^rmy Continued 
 mand volunteers, 122-23; 
 Selective Service Act, 122, 
 126-27, 133; National Army, 
 128; training, 128-29, 130- 
 132; cantonments, 129-30 
 (note); supplies, 129, 132- 
 133, 134-43, 152; democracy 
 of, 134; transportation of 
 troops, 195, 196-97 
 
 Australia, grain not available 
 for Europe, 159 
 
 Austria, Italy s offensive 
 against, 193; attempts for 
 separate peace with, 231-32; 
 treaty, 317, 321-22; denied 
 right to incorporate with 
 Germany, 322, 326; see also 
 Austria-Hungary 
 
 Austria-Hungary, collapse, 224, 
 228; offers to negotiate on 
 basis of Fourteen Points, 
 241; subject nationalities 
 receive independence, 324; 
 see also Austria, Hungary 
 
 Ay res, L. P., The War with Ger 
 many, cited, 142 (note) 
 
 Baker, N. D., Secretary of 
 War, as pacifist, 85-86, 117- 
 118; delays approving ma 
 chine gun, 137; and Wilson, 
 153; and coal price agree 
 ment, 166-67 
 
 Baldwin Locomotive Works, 
 suspected German plot at, 
 79 
 
 Balfour, A. J., Lloyd George 
 and, 13; in Council of Ten, 
 270-71 
 
 Baltimore, Democratic con 
 vention (1912), 7-8 
 
 Banat of Temesvar, "The In 
 quiry" gathers facts con 
 cerning, 260 
 
 Bapaume, capture of, 192 
 
 Bartlett, C. L., introduces bill 
 in House prohibiting sales to 
 belligerents, 73 
 
 Baruch, B. M., appointment 
 by Wilson, 15; on Council of 
 National Defense, 155; chair 
 man of War Industries 
 Board, 157; at Peace Con 
 ference, 259, 276 
 
 Belgium, American sympathy 
 for, 38, 73, 114; Wilson s 
 answer to appeal, 40; relief, 
 67; effect in America of de 
 portation of civilians, 97, 
 99; Germans rank United 
 States Army with that of, 
 117; Hoover in, 160; com 
 plaint against treaty, 321; 
 treaty provision regarding, 
 324 
 
 Belleau Woods, attack on, 214, 
 225 
 
 Benes, Edward, Foreign 
 Minister of Czecho-Slovak 
 Republic, and Council of 
 Ten, 274 
 
 Benson, Admiral W. S., and 
 Daniels, 144 
 
 Bernstorff, Johann von, Ger 
 man Ambassador in Wash 
 ington, 41-42, 75, 106; dis 
 missed, 108 
 
 Bethlehem Steel Company, 
 suspected German plots in 
 plant of, 79 
 
 Bethmann-Hollweg and sub 
 marine warfare, 106 
 
 "Big Four," see Council of 
 Four 
 
 Bliss, General T. H., on Su 
 preme Military Council, 205- 
 206; on Peace Commission, 
 249 
 
 Blockade, British blockade of 
 foodstuffs, 45; as justi 
 fication of submarine war 
 fare, 53; effect of submarine 
 warfare upon American 
 ports, 110 
 
 Bolshevik revolution, 193 
 
 Borah, W. E., against treaty 
 and League of Nations, 330- 
 
 ! 
 
INDEX 
 
 369 
 
 Borah, W. E. Continued 
 331, 342; speech-making 
 tour, 339-40 
 
 Bordeaux, port allotted Ameri 
 can Expeditionary Force, 
 202, 203 
 
 Bosch Magneto Company, 
 German intrigue and, 75 
 
 Bourgeois, Leon, on committee 
 to draft plan for League of 
 Nations, 289 
 
 Boy-Ed, Karl, German naval 
 attache, 75; and Mexico, 76; 
 dismissed, 78 
 
 Brandegee, F. B., against 
 treaty and League of 
 Nations, 342 
 
 Bratiano, J. J. C., of Rumania, 
 and Council of Ten, 274 
 
 Brest, destroyer base at, 199; 
 port allotted American Ex 
 peditionary Force, 202-03; 
 George Washington reaches, 
 254 
 
 Brest-Litovsk treaty, 239 
 
 Bridgeport, German manu 
 facturing company at, 75; 
 strikes at, 79 
 
 British Grand Fleet, American 
 battleships join, 199 
 
 Brockdorff-Rantzau, U. K. C., 
 graf von, German Minister 
 for Foreign Affairs, 317 
 
 Browning machine gun, 137, 138 
 
 Brusilov attack, 193 ^ 
 
 Bryan, W. J., leader in Demo 
 cratic convention (1912), 7, 
 8; resigns as Secretary of 
 State, 53-54; pacifist sug 
 gestion, 59; popular with 
 pacifists, 70 
 
 Bryn Mawr College, Wilson 
 professor at, 3 
 
 Bucharest treaty, 239 
 
 Bulgaria, collapse, 224, 228, 
 241; treaty term regarding, 
 327 
 
 Burleson, A. S., and Wilson, 
 18; Postmaster-General. 154 
 
 Byng, General, at Cambrai, 
 193 
 
 Caine, Hall, quoted, 105 
 
 California and election of Wil 
 son (1916), 92 
 
 Cambon, Jules, 276 
 
 Cambrai, German lines broken 
 at, 193, 224 
 
 Canada, Americans in forces 
 of, 67 
 
 Cantigny, engagement at, 211- 
 212 
 
 Caporetto, Italian collapse at, 
 193; Foch commands French 
 forces in Italy after, 207 
 
 Carl, Emperor of Austria, 
 desire for separate peace, 
 232 
 
 Carranza, Venustiano, Wilson 
 recognizes, 86; protests 
 American expedition, 87 
 
 Carrizal, attack by Carranza s 
 troops at, 87 
 
 Cecil, Lord Robert, on com 
 mittee to draft plan for 
 League of Nations, 289, 
 290 
 
 Chamberlain, G. E., and pre 
 paredness, 82 
 
 Chateau-Thierry, 212-13, 216, 
 225 
 
 Chauchat automatic rifles, 
 137 
 
 Chemical Warfare Service, 
 143 
 
 Chemin des Dames, 210, 212 
 
 Chicago. Wilson speaks at, 83 
 
 China, American policy to 
 ward, 31; accepts Japan s 
 Shantung claim, 315; dele 
 gates refuse to sign treaty, 
 321 
 
 Civil War, relations with Great 
 Britain during, 29 
 
 Clark, Champ, candidate for 
 Presidential nomination 
 (1912), 8; and conscription, 
 126 
 
370 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Clayton Act, 90 
 Clemenceau, Georges, treat 
 ment of other French dele 
 gates at Paris, 13; signs plea 
 for American troops, 210; 
 and question of indemnity, 
 281, 300, 301; opposition to 
 Fourteen Points, 251, 252; 
 in Council of Ten, 264-67; 
 languages, 272; on Council 
 of Premiers, 277; helps for 
 mulate armistice policy, 278; 
 wounded, 278; and League 
 of Nations, 286-87, 288, 303; 
 ability to conduct plenary 
 sessions, 289; change in atti 
 tude toward Wilson, 295; 
 and Fiume, 313 
 
 Cleveland, Wilson speaks at, 
 83 
 
 Coal, see Fuel Administration 
 
 Coffin, H. E., chairman Air 
 craft Production Board, 140; 
 on Council of National De 
 fense, 155 
 
 Colleges, Students Army 
 Training Corps, 131; straw 
 vote on treaty in, 345 
 (note) 
 
 Colt machine gun, 137 
 
 Commerce, British Orders in 
 Council to control, 42-43; 
 see alsy Submarine warfare, 
 United States Shipping 
 Board, War Trade Board 
 
 Committee on Engineering and 
 Education, 155-56 
 
 Congress, Wilson and, 17, 21, 
 191; Wilson s appeal for 
 Democratic, 18, 246-47; and 
 arming of merchant vessels, 
 58-59, 60, 110-11; and note 
 to Germany (April 19, 1916), 
 61; pacifically- minded, 82; 
 preparedness, 85; Wilson s 
 speech in Senate (Jan. 22, 
 1917), 103-05; announcement 
 of severance of diplomatic 
 relations with Germany to, 
 
 107-08; Wilson s speech 
 (April 2, 1917), 111-13; de 
 clares war, 116; and the 
 army, 119, 133; and conscrip 
 tion, 126; appropriation for 
 airplanes, 140; Overman Act, 
 149, 157, 189, 190; Lever 
 Act, 161, 167; proposes con 
 trol of military affairs, 188; 
 atiacks on Wilson s war poli 
 cies by Senate, 188-89; Sen 
 ate and the treaty, 330 et seq.; 
 Foreign Relations Committee 
 meets Wilson at W T hite 
 House, 336-37 
 
 Conscientious objectors, 133 
 
 Conscription, sec Draft 
 
 Contraband, British interpre 
 tation of, 42 
 
 Council of Foreign Ministers, 
 277 
 
 Council of Four, 277-80 
 
 Council of National Defense, 
 154 et seq.; W ar Industries 
 Board, 156-59; food con 
 servation, 159-66; fuel con 
 servation, 166-71; Labor 
 Committee, 181; publicity, 
 186; influence lessened, 187 
 
 Council of Premiers, 277 
 
 Council of Ten, experts at 
 meetings of, 261; organi 
 zation of, 262-64; Supreme 
 Council called, 264; meet 
 ings, 264, 272-74; personnel, 
 264-72; and commissions, 
 275; becomes unwieldy, 278; 
 Wilson leaves League com 
 mittee to attend, 290 
 
 Crillon, Hotel, home of Ameri 
 can Commission at Paris, 
 258 
 
 Crowe, Sir Eyre, on territorial 
 commission, 276 
 
 Crowell, Benedict, Assistant 
 Secretary of War, quoted, 
 135 
 
 Cuba, interest of United States 
 in, 29; Pershing in, 123 
 
INDEX 
 
 371 
 
 Cunliffe, British financial ex 
 pert, 300 
 
 Gushing attacked by German 
 aeroplane, 49 
 
 Czechoslovakia, question of 
 autonomy for Czechs, 232; 
 nationalistic ambitions 
 aroused by treaty, 322; Ger 
 mans and Magyars in, 327; 
 and the League, 328 
 
 Czernin von Chudenitz, Otto- 
 kar, count, Austrian Chan 
 cellor, 239 
 
 Daniels, Josephus, Secretary of 
 Navy, 144 
 
 Danzig, "The Inquiry" 
 gathers facts concerning, 
 260; treaty provision, 326 
 
 Davis, Norman, financial ad 
 visor to Peace Commission, 
 259, 276 
 
 "Daylight saving," 169 
 
 Democratic party, Wilson and, 
 5, 6; convention (1912), 
 7-8; Wilson makes plea for 
 Democratic Congress, 18, 
 246-47; foreign policy, 25- 
 26, 35; Wilson and machine 
 leaders, 88 
 
 Denman, William, chairman of 
 United States Shipping 
 Board, 175 
 
 Dent, S. H., and conscription, 
 126 
 
 Dernburg, Dr. Bernhard, and 
 German propaganda, 44, 72 
 
 Dillon, E. J., on Wilson, 9-10 
 
 Disarmament, see Armaments, 
 Reduction of 
 
 Draft, Wilson and, 122, 126; 
 Selective Service Act, 122, 
 127; National Army, 128; 
 success of, 133; General 
 Staff prepares plans for, 
 148 
 
 Dulles, J. F., proposes Repa 
 rations Commission, 306 
 (note) 
 
 Dumba, Dr. Constantin, Aus 
 trian Ambassador at Wash 
 ington, 77; recall requested, 
 77-78 
 
 Durazzo, navy at, 200 
 
 East, Far, American policy 
 
 regarding, 31-32; see also 
 
 China, Japan 
 Embargo, question of embargo 
 
 on munitions, 43-45, 73 ^ 
 Emergency Fleet Corporation, 
 
 175, 176, 178 
 Emery, H. C., on German 
 
 pessimism in June, 1918, 
 
 240 
 
 Enfield rifles, 139 
 Entente, American opinion 
 
 favors, 38; see also Allies, 
 
 names of countries 
 Erzberger, Matthias, leader of 
 
 Reichstag revolt, 229-30 
 Expeditionary Force, see 
 
 American Expeditionary 
 
 Force 
 
 Faisal, Emir, Arabian repre 
 sentative at Peace Confer 
 ence, 261 
 
 Falaba sunk by submarine, 
 49 
 
 Fayolle, General, French 
 leader, 206; supports Foch, 
 208 
 
 Fiume, "The Inquiry" gathers 
 facts concerning, 260; ques 
 tion of Italian claim, 261, 
 312-14, 315-16 
 
 Foch, General Ferdinand, Per- 
 shing compared with, 123; 
 on gasoline conservation, 
 170; and American troops, 
 196, 227; made commander- 
 in-chief of Allied armies, 
 207; Chemin des Dames, 
 210; launches counter-offen 
 sive (July 18, 1918), 215- 
 216; political movements 
 supplement victories of, 228; 
 
872 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Foch, General Continued 
 movement on Sedan, 241; 
 and armistice, 244; at Peace 
 Conference, 261; and Council 
 of Ten, 273; inspects troops 
 on Rhine, 320 
 
 Food Administration, 160-66 
 
 Ford, Henry, sends "Peace 
 Ship" to Europe, 74 
 
 Fore River shipyards, 176 
 
 Forster, Austrian counselor, 
 232 
 
 "Four Minute Men," 186 
 
 Fourteen Points, Wilson intro 
 duces, 233-34, 353; dis 
 cussion of, 234-38; failure of, 
 238, 280, 322-23; Austria- 
 Hungary offers to negotiate 
 on basis of, 241; Germans 
 accept as basis of negoti 
 ations, 242; accepted by 
 Allies, 243, 244. 281; Wilson 
 goes to Paris to defend, 250; 
 Wilson s concessions, 287; 
 territorial settlements carry 
 out, 323-24 
 
 France, American Expedition 
 ary Force, see Ameri 
 can Expeditionary Force; 
 French army ordered out of 
 Mexico by United States, 
 29; American cause identical 
 with that of, 37; messages 
 to Wilson, 40; and Wilson s 
 note (Dec. 18, 1916), 102; 
 mission to United States, 
 122; French officers instruct 
 in American schools, 131; 
 military disappointment 
 (1917), 192; morale low, 
 193; problem of frontier, 
 302-03, 306-07, 325-26; 
 complaint against treaty, 
 321; Alsace-Lorraine re 
 turned to, 324 
 
 Franco-British-American alli 
 ance, 310 
 
 Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of 
 Austria, assassination, 27 
 
 Freedom of the seas, one of 
 Fourteen Points, 234; not 
 discussed at Peace Confer 
 ence, 287, 323 
 
 Freya, German line of defense, 
 223 
 
 Fuel Administration, 167-71, 
 186 
 
 Galicia, "The Inquiry" 
 gathers facts concerning. 
 260 
 
 Gardner, A. P., and prepared 
 ness, 82 
 
 Garfield, H. A., Wilson and, 
 15; Fuel Administrator, 167, 
 171 
 
 Garrison, L. M., Secretary of 
 War, resigns, 85 
 
 Gasoline savings effected by 
 gasless Sundays, 170-71 
 
 General Medical Board, 155 
 
 General Purchasing Board, 
 204 
 
 General Staff, 119-20, 157, 
 188 
 
 George Washington, Wilson s 
 speech on, quoted, 40-41; 
 German boat, 179; Wilson 
 sails on, 253, 254, 329; 
 Wilson and experts on, 260; 
 ordered to Brest, 304 
 
 Gerard, J. W., American Am 
 bassador to Germany, re 
 called, 108 
 
 German-Americans, opposi 
 tion to Wilson, 70; Wilson 
 and, 79-80, 90, 91; and the 
 treaty, 338 
 
 Germany, American sympathy, 
 37-38; Wilson answer to 
 protest from, 40; Wilson and 
 mediation, 41-42, 99; Great 
 Britain blockades, 42; tries 
 to prevent export of Ameri 
 can munitions, 43-45; prop 
 aganda in America, 44, 65, 
 71-74, 186; submarine war 
 fare, 45-46. 47 et seq., 
 
INDEX 
 
 373 
 
 Germany Continued 
 
 97, 99-100, 106-07, 109-10; 
 Wilson s reply to submarine 
 threat, 46; sinks Lusitania, 
 49-50; Lusitania notes, 54- 
 56; pledges not to sink lin 
 ers without warning, 56-57; 
 announcement regarding 
 armed merchantmen, 57; 
 Sussex torpedoed, 60; Wil 
 son s note (April 16, 1916), 
 61-63; opinion of United 
 States, 70, 117; secret in 
 trigue in United States, 74- 
 80; appeal of ninety- three 
 professors, 72; officials dis 
 missed from United States, 
 78; U-53 off American coast, 
 97; proposes negotiations 
 (Dec. 12, 1916). 100-01; 
 peace note to, 101-03; warn 
 ing in Wilson s speech (Jan. 
 22, 1917), 104; withdraws 
 Sussex pledge, 106; diplo 
 matic relations broken off, 
 107-08; overt acts, 109-10; 
 publication of plans regard 
 ing Mexico and Japan, 111; 
 United States declares war 
 on, 111-14, 116; attack 
 (March 21, 1918), 206; drive 
 along Lys, 209; fourth and 
 last drive (July 15, 1918), 
 214; requests armistice, 224, 
 241; abdication of Kaiser, 
 229; Reichstag revolt (July, 
 1917), 229-30; negotiations 
 with Russia, 232; Wilson 
 on disposition of colonies, 
 284; delegates at Peace 
 Conference, 317; protests 
 treaty terms, 317; accepts 
 treaty, 320; responsibility 
 for war, 354 
 
 Gibraltar, destroyer base at, 
 199 
 
 Godfrey, Hollis, on Council of 
 National Defense, 155 
 
 Goethals. General G. W.. head 
 
 of Emergency Fleet Cor 
 poration, 175 
 
 Goltz, von der, plots destruc 
 tion of Welland Canal, 76 
 
 Gompers, Samuel, on Council 
 of National Defense, 155; 
 at Peace Conference, 259 
 
 Gore, T. P., introduces Sen 
 ate resolution regarding 
 armed merchant vessels, 59 
 
 Goricar, Dr. Joseph, reve 
 lations concerning Ger 
 man intrigue, 78-79 
 
 Gough, General, army de 
 feated, 206 
 
 Gouraud, General, supports 
 Foch, 208; and German 
 drive of July, 1918, 215 
 
 Grandpre, battle around, 223 
 
 Great Britain, relations with 
 United States, 29, 33-34, 38; 
 American cause identical 
 with that of, 37; Orders 
 in Council for control of 
 neutral commerce, 42-43; 
 United States disputes ship 
 ping rights with, 42-43, 65- 
 66; and Wilson s note (Dec. 
 18, 1916), 102; and Wilson s 
 speech (Jan. 22, 1917), 105; 
 mission to United States, 
 122; British officers instruct 
 in American schools, 131; 
 provides transports for 
 troops, 179; American battle 
 ships join British Grand 
 Fleet, 199; see also Allies, 
 Lloyd George 
 
 Greece, demand for territory, 
 282; treaty term concerning, 
 327 
 
 Gregory, T. W., Attorney- 
 General, 154 
 
 Grey, Viscount, British Am 
 bassador to United States, 
 letter concerning League, 
 347 
 
 Gulflight sunk by submarine, 
 49 
 
S74 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Haig, Sir Douglas, quoted, 209 
 
 Hamburg- American Line, 76 
 
 Harvey, Colonel George, men 
 tions Wilson as possible 
 President (1906), 5 
 
 Hertling, von, German Chan 
 cellor, 238-39 
 
 Hesperian sunk by Germans, 
 57 
 
 Hindenburg, General Paul von, 
 retreat on Somme front, 192; 
 line broken, 224 
 
 Hitchcock, G. M., Wilson 
 writes to, 344, 346 
 
 Hog Island shipyards, 176 
 
 Holland, agents of General 
 Purchasing Board in, 204 
 
 Hoover, H. C., head of Food 
 Administration, 160-64; per 
 sonal characteristics, 160; 
 and morale, 186; at Peace 
 Conference, 259; and League 
 of Nations, 328, 346 
 
 Horn, Werner, plans destruc 
 tion of bridge at Vanceboro 
 (Maine), 75 
 
 House, Colonel E. M., and 
 Wilson, 12, 18, 49, 260, 334- 
 335; sent to Europe, (1914- 
 15), 47-49; personal char 
 acteristics, 47-48; war mis 
 sion (1917), 194-95; and 
 appointment of a general 
 issimo, 207; and separate 
 peace with Austria, .231; 
 sent abroad for armistice 
 plan, 241, 242, 278; on 
 Pea^e Commission, 249; at 
 Peace Conference, 258; and 
 "The Inquiry," 259-60; sug 
 gests territorial commissions, 
 275-76; and Council of Four, 
 278-79; and League of Na 
 tions Covenant, 290; as medi 
 ator between Wilson and 
 Allied leaders, 304 
 
 Huerta, Victoriano, German 
 plot to restore, 76; at Vera 
 Cruz. 86 
 
 Hughes, C. E., Republican 
 candidate for Presidency 
 (1916), 91-92 
 
 Hughes, W. M., Premier of 
 Australia, demands German 
 colonies for Allies, 288-89 
 
 Hungary, treaty and, 322; and 
 League, 328; see also 
 Austria-Hu ngary 
 
 Hurley, E. N., chairman of 
 Shipping Board, 176; at 
 Peace Conference, 259 
 
 Hurst, C. J. B., legal expert, 290 
 
 Igel, von, German agent, 80 
 
 Indemnities, Allies delay rais 
 ing issue, 244-45; question 
 of German, 296-302; settle 
 ment in treaty, 304-06; flaw 
 in treaty regarding, 322; 
 justice of, 325 
 
 Initiative and referendum in 
 Oregon, 15 
 
 "Inquiry, The," Colonel 
 House establishes, 260, 276- 
 277 
 
 Interallied Board of Supplies, 
 204 
 
 Irish in United States, 29; 
 against Wilson, 59 
 
 Italy, offensive against Austria, 
 193; claims, 310-14; com 
 plaint against treaty, 321; 
 annexations, 326-27 
 
 Japan, interest of United 
 States in, 31; Roosevelt as 
 peacemaker between Russia 
 and, 34; question of immi 
 gration from, 35, 70; Ger 
 man intrigue concerning, 
 106; delegates in Council of 
 Ten, 271; claims, 310, 315- 
 317; and League Covenant, 
 314; threatens withdrawal 
 from Conference, 315; de 
 mands acceded to, 321 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, policy of 
 non-intervention. 30 
 
INDEX 
 
 375 
 
 Joffre, General, J. J. C., with 
 mission to United States, 
 122; battle of the Marne, 
 207 
 
 Johns Hopkins University, 
 Wilson at, 3 
 
 Johnson, Hiram, Governor of 
 California, 92; as Senator 
 hostile to League and treaty, 
 330, 339-40, 342 
 
 Jugoslavs, and Wilson, 228- 
 229; Austria counselled to 
 grant autonomy to, 232; 
 application of Treaty of 
 London against, 311; na 
 tionalistic ambitions aroused 
 by treaty, 322; placed under 
 Italian rule, 326-27 
 
 Julian Alps, Italy s claim, 311 
 
 Kahn, Julius, and conscription, 
 
 126 
 Keynes, J. M., on Wilson, 
 
 24 
 Kiau-Chau, Japan s claim to, 
 
 315, 321 
 Kitchin, Claude, leader of 
 
 House, and draft, 126 
 Klotz, French Finance Minis 
 ter, and indemnities, 300 
 Knox, P. C., treaty resolution, 
 
 345 
 Kronprinzessin Cecilie, voyage 
 
 of, 28 
 
 Labor, McAdoo s concessions, 
 174; and German propa 
 ganda, 186 
 
 Labor Department, reorgani 
 zation, 181; national war 
 labor policy, 182 
 
 La Fayette, Marquis de, em 
 phasis of history on, 38; 
 "La Fayette, we are here!" 
 123 
 
 Lammasch, Austrian liberal, 
 232 
 
 Lament, T. W., and Wilson, 
 12; on Wilson, 12-13 (note). 
 
 at Peace Conference, 259. 
 276 
 
 Lane, F. K., Secretary of In 
 terior, 153 
 
 Lansdowne, Lord, peace speech 
 (1917), 232 
 
 Lansing, Robert, Secretary of 
 State, 58, 153-54; Wilson 
 and, 13, 271; proposes ceas 
 ing to arm merchantmen, 58; 
 on Peace Commission, 249; 
 in Council of Ten, 268, 269 
 
 Latin America, United States 
 relations with, 35 
 
 League to Enforce Peace, Wil 
 son s speech before, 95; Taft 
 president of, 96; Wilson and, 
 283 
 
 League of Nations, 281 et seq.; 
 refusal to discuss (1916), 
 102; Wilson and, 238, 353; 
 Taft and Root pledged to, 
 249; Wilson heads com 
 mission working on, 275, 
 276; incorporation in treaty, 
 286, 287-88, 327; Covenant 
 completed, 290; mechanism, 
 290-92; revised Covenant 
 adopted, 309; Germany ex 
 cluded from, 317; opposition 
 to, 330 et seq. , reservations 
 suggested by Senate, 334; 
 in operation, 359 
 
 Lever Act, 161, 167 
 
 Leviathan, Vaterland rechris- 
 tened, 179 
 
 Lewis machine gun, 137 
 
 Liberty Bonds, 183, 184- 
 186 
 
 Liberty Motor, 140 
 
 Lloyd George, and Balfour, 13; 
 signs plea for American 
 troops, 210; and separate 
 peace with Austria, 231; out 
 lines terms of peace (1917), 
 232-33, 236; and indemnity, 
 244, 281, 300, 301; and Wil 
 son s peace programme, 252; 
 at Peace Conference, 258; 
 
376 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Lloyd George Continued 
 in Council of Ten, 269-70; 
 on Council of Premiers, 277; 
 on committee to formulate 
 armistice policy, 278; delays 
 opening of Peace Confer 
 ence, 285; and League of 
 Nations, 287; and "manda 
 tories," 289; change in atti 
 tude toward Wilson, 295; 
 opposes French annexation 
 of Saar region, 302; and 
 Fiume, 313; on modification 
 of treaty terms, 318, 319 
 
 Lodge, H. C., reservation on 
 Article X of League Cove 
 nant, 15; opposition to treaty 
 and League, 330, 333, 335, 
 
 339, 342, 344, 345, 347, 348; 
 personal conflict with Wilson, 
 
 340, 346 
 
 Lorraine front, Americans on, 
 211 
 
 Loucheur, financial expert, 
 300 
 
 Louvain library burned, 73 
 
 Ludendorff, General Erich von, 
 German leader, 230, 232, 
 239, 240 
 
 Lusitania, Germans sink, 49; 
 effect on America, 50-51, 
 114; notes, 53, 54, 56; Ger 
 man pledge, 56-57; Ger 
 many does not disavow, 
 57 
 
 McAdoo, W. G., Secretary of 
 Treasury, 153; Director- 
 General of Railroads, 172; 
 concessions to labor, 174; 
 and taxation, 183 
 
 McCormick, Vance, Wilson 
 and, 15; heads War Trade 
 Board, 130; at Peace Confer 
 ence, 259, 276 
 
 McCumber, Senator, spokes 
 man in Senate for middle- 
 ground Republicans on 
 treaty, 336, 337, 344 
 
 McKinley, William, and dec 
 laration of war on Spain, 
 51; begs for Republican 
 Congress (1898), 246 
 
 McLemore, Jeff, introduces 
 House resolution concerning 
 armed merchant vessels, 59 
 
 Magyars, and Wilson, 229; 
 prevent separate peace with 
 Austria, 232 
 
 Maine, sinking of (1898), 51 
 
 "Mandatories," 288 
 
 Mangin, General, supports 
 Foch, 208 
 
 Mantoux, interpreter for 
 Council of Ten, 272-73 
 
 Marne, Foch at battle of the, 
 207; Germans reach, 210 
 
 Martin, F. H., on Council of 
 National Defense, 155 
 
 Masaryk, T. G., President of 
 Czecho-Slovak Republic, on 
 Wilson, 10 
 
 Max, Prince, of Baden, Ger 
 man Chancellor, 241 
 
 Merchant vessels, submarine 
 warfare against, 45-46, 57- 
 58; British arm, 57; question 
 of ceasing to arm, 58; ques 
 tion of warning Americans 
 from, 59-60; W T ilson asks 
 authority to arm, 110 
 
 Meuse-Argonne drive, 124; 
 Browning machine guns used 
 in, 138; see also Argonne 
 
 Mexico, United States orders 
 French army from, 29; prob 
 lem in 1912, 35; relations 
 (1916), 86; expedition 
 against Villa, 87-88, 123; 
 German intrigue, 106, 111 
 
 Miller, D. H., legal expert, 
 290 
 
 Milwaukee, Wilson speaks at, 
 83 
 
 Minnesota, election (1916), 
 92 
 
 Monroe Doctrine, 30-31, 3% 
 103-04. 309, 334 
 
INDEX 
 
 377 
 
 Monf Agu, financial expert, 300 
 Munitions, Ministry of, pro 
 posed, 188 
 Miinsterberg, Hugo, 37 
 
 National Army, 128; canton- 
 meats built, 129-30 (note) 
 
 Nat onal Guard, 189 
 
 National Industrial Confer 
 ence Board, 182 
 
 "National Security League, 81, 
 82 
 
 National War Labor Board, 
 182 
 
 Navy, preparedness, 143-45; 
 expansion of, 145-46 ; con 
 voy troop ships, 197; hunt 
 submarines, 197; Ordnance 
 Bureau manufactures mines, 
 200; and mine barrage, 200 
 
 Nebraskan, submarine attack 
 on, 56 
 
 Neutrality, 27 et seq., 352-53; 
 bibliography, 362 
 
 New Jersey, Wilson as Gover 
 nor of, 5-7, 21 
 
 New Mexico, promised by 
 Germany as bribe to Mexico, 
 106 
 
 New York (State), election 
 (1916), 92 
 
 New York City, German press 
 bureau in, 72; Wilson s 
 speech, 294-95 
 
 New York Times, and election 
 (1916), 92 
 
 Nivelle, General R. G., plans 
 French offensive, 192-93 
 
 "Non-intervention," policy of, 
 30 
 
 North Sea, American battle 
 ships in, 199-200 
 
 Notes, protest to British 
 Government, 43; warning to 
 Germany of American rights 
 on high seas, 46; Lusitania 
 notes, 53-57, 61; to Ger 
 many (April 19. 1916), 61. 
 107 
 
 Officers training camp, 130- 
 131 
 
 Olney, Richard, on American 
 foreign policy, 33 
 
 Orduna, submarine attack on, 
 56 
 
 Oregon, question of initiative 
 and referendum in, 15 
 
 Orlando, V. E., signs plea for 
 American troops, 210; in 
 Council of Ten, 272; on 
 Council of Premiers, 277; 
 and Fiume claim, 312; retires 
 from Conference, 313; re 
 sumes place in Conference, 
 314 
 
 Overman Act, 149, 157,189, 190 
 
 Pacifists, Wilson as pacifist, 
 39-40; organizations, 73; 
 Ford s "Peace Ship," 74 l , 
 oppose preparedness, 81; 
 and Liberty Loans, 187 
 
 Paderewski, I. J., and Council 
 of Ten, 274 
 
 Panama Canal, question of 
 tolls, 35 
 
 Papen, Franz von, German 
 military attache, 75, 76; 
 letter to his wife, 77; dis 
 missed, 78 
 
 Paris, fears capture (1918), 
 210; see also Peace Con 
 ference 
 
 Peace Conference, 254 et seq.; 
 Wilson at, 23; American 
 Commission, 248-50; delay 
 in opening, 256-57, 285; lack 
 of organization, 257; atmos 
 phere, 257-58; meets (Jan. 
 18, 1919), 261; commissions, 
 275-76; German delegates at, 
 317; bibliography, 364-65 
 
 "Peace Ship," Henry Ford 
 sends to Europe, 74 
 
 Pennsylvania, battleship, pre 
 cedes George Washington out 
 of New York harbor, 253 
 
 Peronne, capture of, 192 
 
378 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Pershing, General J. J., Mexi 
 can expedition, 87, 88; com 
 mands American Expedi 
 tionary Force, 122, 123-24, 
 148; personal characteristics, 
 123; calls for replacements, 
 130; insistant on offensive 
 spirit, 131; and Browning 
 guns, 138; plea for troops, 
 194, 196; policy, 205; policy 
 shattered, 208-09; con 
 fidence in American troops, 
 211, 222; on Americans at 
 Soissons, 216; and armistice, 
 244; ready for invasion of 
 Germany, 320 
 
 Petain, General H. P., Per 
 shing compared with, 123; 
 supports Foch, 207 
 
 Philippines, and American for 
 eign policy, 32; problem in 
 1912, 35; Pershing s experi 
 ence in, 123 
 
 Pichon, Stephane, French For 
 eign Minister, Council of 
 Ten meets in study of, 264; 
 in Council of Ten, 267 
 
 Pittsburgh, Wilson speaks at, 
 83 
 
 Plattsburg (N. Y.), civilian 
 camp at, 82 
 
 Plebiscites, 326; see also Self- 
 determination 
 
 Poland, Austria and Poles, 
 232; claims, 282; national 
 istic ambitions aroused by 
 treaty, 322; independence 
 recognized, 324; outlet to 
 sea, 326; and League, 328 
 
 Politics, insignificant r61e in 
 Great War, 226; see also 
 Democratic party, Republi 
 can party 
 
 Pomerene, Atlee, proposes 
 committee of conciliation for 
 treaty, 345 
 
 Portugal, Germany ranks 
 American army with that of, 
 117 
 
 Preparedness, 71 et seq.\ Wilson 
 and, 15, 58, 117, 118; Wood 
 on, 80-81; of army when 
 war declared, 117 
 
 Princeton University, Wilson 
 at, 3-5 
 
 Progressive party, 92 
 
 Propaganda, German, 44, 65, 
 71-74, 186 
 
 Punch, cartoon on Wilson s 
 patience, 56 
 
 Quai d Orsay, Peace Confer 
 ence held at, 261, 310 
 
 Queenstown, destroyers sent 
 to, 145, 197, 199 
 
 Raggi, Salvage, on territorial 
 commission of Peace Confer 
 ence, 276 
 
 Reading, Lord, refuses mission 
 for separate peace with Aus 
 tria, 231 
 
 Red Cross, American help for, 
 67 
 
 Reparations Commission, 305- 
 306; see also Indemnities 
 
 Republican party, and Wilson, 
 1, 5-6; and election of 1916, 
 89-92; success (1918), 247 
 
 Revertata, Austrian emissary, 
 231 
 
 Rheims cathedral shelled, 73 
 
 Rintelen, Franz von, German 
 agent, 80 
 
 Roebling wire-rope shop, sus 
 pected German plots in, 79 
 
 Roosevelt, F. D., Assistant 
 Secretary of Navy, 144 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, Wilson 
 contrasted to, 16-17, 18; as 
 peacemaker between Rus 
 sia and Japan, 34; on 
 America s policy of non 
 intervention in Europe, 39, 
 53, 69; Republicans refuse 
 as candidate (1916), 90-91; 
 Wilson refuses volunteer 
 command, 122-23; attack on 
 
INDEX 
 
 379 
 
 , Theodore -Jlont d 
 Wilson s war policies, 188; 
 pies* for Republican Con 
 gress (1898). 246-47; on 
 making of the peace, 251 
 
 Root, Elihu, popular demand 
 for membership on Peace 
 Commission, 249 
 
 Rosenwald, Julius, on Council 
 of National Defense, 155 
 
 Rumania, enters war, 99; de 
 feat, 100; demand for terri 
 tory, 282; nationalistic am 
 bitions aroused by treaty, 
 82.2; boundaries extended, 
 32\ v 
 
 Russia, Alaska purchased from, 
 31; Roosevelt as peacemaker 
 between Japan and, 34; 
 in 1916, 100; wheat supply 
 cut off from Europe, 159; 
 Bolshevik revolution, 193; 
 Brusilov attack, 193; nego 
 tiations with Germany, 232; 
 Brest-Litovsk treaty, 239; 
 problem unsettled, 322 
 
 Ruthenians complain of treaty, 
 322 
 
 Ryan, J. D., director of aircraft 
 production for army, 142 
 
 S. O. S., see Service of Supply 
 
 Saar, "The Inquiry" gathers 
 facts concerning, 260; 
 French claim, 302, 325; and 
 the League, 328 
 
 St. Louis, Wilson speaks at, 
 83 
 
 St. Mihiel, battle, 124, 134, 
 211, 218, 219-20 
 
 St. Nazaire, port allotted to 
 American Expeditionary 
 Force, 202 
 
 St. Quentin, American en 
 gineering units at, 211; Hin- 
 denburg line broken at, 
 224 
 
 Scheidemann, Philipp, Ger 
 man premier, 317 
 
 Schwab, C. M., in charge of 
 Emergency Fleet Corpora 
 tion, 176, 178 
 
 Selective Service Act, 122, 127; 
 see also Draft 
 
 Self-determination, principle 
 of, 325; see also Plebiscites 
 
 Serbia, relief, 67; demand for 
 territory, 282; treaty term 
 concerning, 327 
 
 Service of Supply, 202-05 
 
 Shadowlawn, Wilson s speech 
 at, 98 
 
 Shantung, Japan s claim, 315- 
 317; Chinese resent settle 
 ment, 321 
 
 Shipping Board, see United 
 States Shipping Board 
 
 Sims, Admiral W. S., com 
 mands destroyer flotillas, 
 145, 197; personal char 
 acteristics, 198; inter 
 national reputation, 198-99 
 
 Smith, James, Democratic boss 
 of New Jersey, Wilson and, 6 
 
 Smuts, General, mission to 
 Switzerland in behalf of 
 peace with Austria, 231; and 
 League of Nations, 289, 290- 
 signs treaty, 321 
 
 Soissons, American troops at. 
 216 
 
 Somme front, Hindenburg s 
 retreat, 192 
 
 Sonnino, S. C., Baron, Italian 
 Peace Commissioner, 251; 
 opposed Wilson s pro 
 gramme, 252; in Council of 
 Ten, 271-72; languages, 
 272; and Fiume, 312 
 Spain, war with, 28, 29, 30, 32, 
 33, 51; agent of General 
 Purchasing Board in, 204 
 Springfield rifle, 138 
 Stone, W. J., approves em 
 bargo on munitions, 44; 
 supports resolutions con 
 cerning armed merchant 
 vessels, 59 
 
880 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Students* Army Training 
 Corps. 131 
 
 Submarine warfare, 45, 47 et 
 teq. t 105, 106-07. 109-10. 
 193 
 
 Sumner, British financial ex 
 pert, 300 
 
 Sussex, torpedoed without 
 warning, 60, 80; pledge, 62, 
 97; feeling in America re 
 garding, 99; withdrawal of 
 pledge, 106 
 
 Switzerland, agent of General 
 Purchasing Board in, 204 
 
 Taft, W. H.. attitude toward 
 America s entering war, 53; 
 president of League to En 
 force Peace, 96; on National 
 War Labor Board, 182; popu 
 lar demand for membership 
 on Peace Commission, 249; 
 for compromise on treaty, 
 346 
 
 Tardieu, Andr6, in Council of 
 Ten, 267; on territorial com 
 mission, 276; assists House in 
 reconciling Wilson and 
 Allied leaders, 304 
 
 Tauscher, Captain Hans, and 
 German plots, 76 
 
 Teschen. "The Inquiry" 
 gathers facts concerning 
 mines in, 260 
 
 Texas promised by Germany as 
 bribe to Mexico, 106 
 
 Times, London, Wilson sanc 
 tions Britain s position * on 
 seas in, 323 
 
 Treaty, flaws in, 321-22; Sen 
 ate and, 330 et seq.; see also 
 League of Nations, Peace 
 Conference 
 
 Treaty of London, 310-11, 312. 
 313. 314 
 
 Tumulty. J. P.. Wilson and, 
 18 
 
 Turkey, collapse, 224. 228 
 
 Tyrol, Italian claim in, 288, 
 
 311; Italy granted territory. 
 326 
 
 Underwood, O. W., mo^ionfof 
 ratification of treaty, 544 
 
 United States, foreign policy, 
 30-36; material change due 
 to war (1914-16), 66-68; 
 blindness to war issues, 68; 
 reasons for entering wax, 
 114-15 
 
 United States Shipping Board, 
 
 Vanceboro (Maine), Ge/*nan 
 
 plot to destroy bridge, li, 75 
 
 Vaterland rechristened Levia 
 
 than, 179 
 
 Venezuelan crisis, 30 
 Venizelos, Eleutherios. and 
 Council of Ten, 273-74: 
 member of League of Na 
 tions commission, 289; on 
 League, 328 
 
 Vera Cruz, occupation of, 86 
 Vickers machine guns, 137 
 Vigilancia torpedoed, 111 
 Villa, Francisco, expedition 
 against, 87, 123 
 
 War Industries Board, 156, 
 
 188 
 War Labor Policies Board, 
 
 182 
 
 War Trade Board, 179, 259 
 Washington, George, warns 
 
 against entangling alliances, 
 
 28 
 Welland Canal, German plot to 
 
 destroy. 75-76 
 Wesleyan University, Wilson ( , 
 
 as professor at, 3 
 White, Henry, at Algeciras 
 
 Conference, 34; on Peace 
 
 Commission, 249 
 Wilhelmina, British seize, 43 
 Willard, Daniel, on Council of 
 
 National Defense, 155 
 
INDEX 
 
 381 
 
 Wilson. Woodrow, as an execu 
 tive, 1 et *eq.\ elected Presi 
 dent, 1, 8; age, 2; early life, 
 ft; personal characteristics, 
 2-3, 8 et seq.; Congressional 
 Government, thesis, 3; Pro- 
 fesaor at Princeton, 3; gradu 
 ate work at Johns Hopkins, 
 JJ; President of Princeton, 4; 
 enters politics, 5; Governor 
 of New Jersey, 5-7; Presi 
 dential nomination, 7-8; 
 Cabinet, 13-14, 153-54; ap 
 pointments, 13-15; social 
 relations, 17; tactical mis 
 takes, 18, 19-20, 247-48, 
 29it\; speeches, 19; as phrase- 
 maiier, 19, 51-52; unpopu 
 larity, 19-20, 68-70, 89, 
 245-46, 253, 332, 337-38; 
 political principles, 20-23; 
 religious convictions, 23-24; 
 and foreign affairs, 25-26, 
 35; and neutrality, 39-41; 
 and mediation, 41-42, 99, 
 100; and proposed embargo 
 on munitions, 44; answer to 
 German submarine proc 
 lamation, 46; and House, 47, 
 48; diplomatic struggle with 
 Germany, 52-57; and right 
 of merchantmen to arm for 
 defense, 58-60, 110-11; Sus 
 sex note to Germany, 61-62; 
 change in foreign policy, 63- 
 65; on German- Americans, 
 79-80, 90, 91; and prepared 
 ness, 81, 82, 84-85, 90, 117- 
 118, 151; speech-making tour 
 (1916), 83-84; and Mexico, 
 86-88; political strength, 88- 
 89; reelection (1916), 88-93, 
 99; development of inter 
 national ideal, 94-97; speech 
 at Omaha, 98; speech at 
 Shadowlawn, 98; peace note 
 (Dec. 18, 1916), 100, 101-03; 
 demands definition of war 
 aims, 101; speech in Senate 
 
 (Jan. 22, 1917), 103-05; 
 severs diplomatic relations 
 with Germany, 107-08; 
 speech in Congress (Feb. 3, 
 1917), 107-09; demand that 
 Congress recognize state of 
 war (April 2, 1917), 111-13; 
 idealism, 113-14, 115, 280; 
 policy of centralization, 119- 
 120, 147-49, 152-53, 188-91; 
 and Pershing, 122, 226; and 
 Roosevelt, 122-23; and draft, 
 126; proclamation (May 18, 
 1917), 150-51; on cooper 
 ation of people, 156; and 
 Hoover, 160, 161; and Gar- 
 field, 167; and revolt in Sen- 
 ate against war policies, 188- 
 189, 190-91; supports ap 
 pointment of generalissimo, 
 207; receives plea for troops 
 from Allies, 210; distribution 
 of speeches in Central Em 
 pires, 228; Flag Day address. 
 229; reply to Pope s peace 
 proposals, 230-31; and ques 
 tion of separate peace with 
 Austria, 231; formulates 
 Fourteen Points, 233-38; 
 appeals to peoples of Central 
 Empire, 239-40; Germany 
 requests armistice of, 241; 
 negotiations with Germany, 
 242; responsibility for armi 
 stice, 243; power in situation, 
 245; appeal for Democratic 
 Congress, 246, 247; appoint 
 ment of Peace Commission, 
 248-50; decision to go to 
 Paris, 250, 251-53; Roose 
 velt on, 251; arrival in 
 Europe, 254; in Paris, 254; 
 in England, 255; in Italy. 
 255; stands for justice, 255- 
 256, 282; popularity wanes. 
 256; use of experts, 260; in 
 Council of Ten, 268; and 
 Lloyd George, 270; heads 
 League of Nations com- 
 
382 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Wilson, Woodrow Continued 
 mission, 275, 276; on Council 
 of Premiers, 277; and Coun 
 cil of Four, 279, 280; difficul 
 ties of task, 281, 284; and 
 indemnities, 281, 296-97; 
 and demands of smaller 
 nationalities, 281-82; and 
 League of Nations, 282-84, 
 286. 289-90, 310, 343-44, 
 346, 348-49, 353; on dis 
 position of German colonies, 
 284, 288; original treaty plan, 
 285; and Clemenceau, 286- 
 287; British delegates sup 
 port, 287, 288; and "manda 
 tories," 288; returns to 
 United States, 290, 292-95; 
 failure to convince America 
 of League s value, 293-95; 
 speech in Metropolitan Opera 
 House, New York City, 294- 
 295 ; returns to Paris, 295 ; op 
 poses French annexation of 
 Saar region, 302; French at 
 tacks on, 303-04; threatens 
 to leave Conference, 304; 
 compromises, 304-08, 309, 
 310; andFiume, 312-13; and 
 Shantung claim, 315, 316-17; 
 on modification of treaty, 
 318-19; cheered upon Ger 
 many s acceptance of treaty, 
 320; returns to United States, 
 
 329; inability to negotiate 
 with Senate, 333-35; con 
 ference at White Irlouse, 
 336-37; lack of popular sup 
 port, 337-38; speech-ijnaking 
 tour in West, 339-40; i break 
 down, 341; and treaty .reser 
 vations, 341-42, 348; bfiame 
 for defeat of treaty, 350, 
 351; phases of adminis 
 tration, 852-53; estimate of 
 achievement, 353-59; bibl ; | 
 ography, 361-62 
 
 Wood, General Leonard, en 
 unpreparedness of army, 80- 
 81; at Plattsburg, 82; on 
 failure of American airplane 
 production, 142 
 
 Works, J. D., introduces Sen 
 ate bill prohibiting sale of 
 munitions, 73 
 
 World, New York, admits Wil 
 son s defeat (1916), 92 
 
 Yarrowdale, German cruelty to 
 American prisoners on, 111 
 
 Yser, battle of the, Foch at, 
 207 
 
 Zeebrugge, naval work at, 
 200 
 
 Zimmermann, A. F. M., Ger 
 man Secretary of Foreign 
 Affairs. 106. 114 
 

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