For Woodrow Wilson the war had always been a tragic prologue to the drama of peace.(...) The challenge of peace was the creation of a just, moral and stable world.“ [172]

   Wilson’s moralist crusade took him to Paris where he would preside the American peace delegation. But Wilson appeared to have given only scarce thought to party politics. He did not include any Republican congressman in the delegation, although the Republicans had just won the congressional elections and appointed one of Wilson’s archrivals, Henry Cabot Lodge, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Com- mittee. With no Republican involved in the negotiations, the outcome would be all the easier to attack.[173]

   And his Fourteen Points were already under attack from France and Britain who just could not see the bright outlook Wilson had of the new world order. After they had looked into the abyss of all-out war, they wanted to ensure 100% that Germany would not again pose a threat to their nations. The French prime minister Clemen- ceau was even more determined to take Germany apart and cripple its power as the French had lost their security-insurance in the East, Russia as an ally after the czar abdicated.[174]

   A sense of urgency hung over the conference that opened January 12, 1919 as revo-lutions and upheaval took over Germany and Hungary and Lenin’s version of people’s self-determination found nationalist followers in the Allies’ colonies (i.e. Ho-Chi-Minh of Vietnam). Lenin himself or any other representant of Bolshevik Russia had not been invited to attend the conference, another secret meeting failed and Wilson and Clemenceau had decided to contain Lenin and his message (see above). Nevertheless, the communist threat influenced many decisions.

   Wilson’s foremost objective was to secure the creation of a League of Nations. In his opinion that would compensate for any failures in working out a sound peace treaty.

   The first point on the agenda were the former German colonies. In a secret treaty the Allied powers had already agreed to divide them up among themselves. Wilson however wanted these colonies to be administered by smaller countries under a mandate from the League of Nations, until they were fit for independence. But the Allies heavily objected, they were determined to extend their power over these areas. To preserve their benevolence for his League-project, Wilson finally agreed to hand the colonies over to the great powers under a mandate by the League. This cost Wilson many sympathies with liberals who criticized his sacrifice of self- determi- nation and decried the solution as a ‘glorification of imperialism’.

   Wilson moved on to write a covenant for the projected League all on his own in just ten days to present his ‘darling’ to Congress. There it faced harsh opposition and the fact that Wilson had personally conceived it made it only more suspicious. It was complained that the Monroe- Doctrine and the integrity of U.S. internal affairs was not duly respected. And although Wilson declared he would submit the peace treaty and the League covenant as one issue for voting in Congress, Lodge and many other Republicans intended to vote against it.

   To get the delegates at Paris to protect the interests of the United States in the cove- nant, Wilson had to make further concessions. Having already given up the ‘freedom of the seas’ for Great Britain’s sake and having violated himself the ‘territorial inte- grity’ of Russia by sending troops there, ‘self-determination’ now received another hard blow. Japan threatened to leave the talks and the League, if they were not allowed the Shantung region in China, home to some 30 million Chinese, which they had seized during the war. Japan was finally allowed to thus expand its power, Wil- son’s concept got severely damaged.

   The next issue to be negotiated was Germany and the re-ordering of Eastern Eu-rope. The French again insisted that Germany be dismembered and France be allowed to annex the industrial heart of Germany, the Rhineland. But Wilson was haunted by the danger of communist revolution in a thus humiliated and crippled Germany; and dismembering Germany would mean having to give up ‘self-determi- nation’ finally. After long disputes, Wilson and Clemenceau found a compromise: France would occupy the Rhineland for 15 years and the United States pledged in an unprecedented entanglement into European quarrels to guarantee the French- Ger- man border. Alsace-Lorraine was to be returned to France and Germany’s military power would be strictly limited. The Germans had to sign a ‘war guilt clause’ and pay high reparations to be determined by a commission. Out of the remnants of Austria-Hungary and territories of Germany and Russia, new nations were to be formed in Eastern Europe. Wilson wanted to create states that would be able to with- stand the Communists’ threat. But to attain this end, he would have to concede to them mainly German populated territories to facilitate their survival. His fear of revolution led him to do just that and finally and mortally violate his own principle of ‘self- determination’.[175]

   Journalist Walter Lippmann cynically observes that the victors of the war „had erected a ‘sanitary cordon’ to block Germany and Russia militarily, when they should have created a ‘sanitary Europe.“[176]

   Despite all his compromising, none of the powers attending (or concerned by) the Paris peace talks was content with Wilson; they were angry with him for getting into their way in reorganizing Europe as they thought best.[177]

   But Wilson still had hope, after all once installed, the League would sort things out  and would efficiently control world peace. Article 10 of the covenant intended just that. It declared that „the Members of the League undertake to respect and pre- serve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all Members of the League.“[178]
Article 16 provided that in case of such aggression the Members would economically isolate the aggressor or even intervene militarily if recommended by the League. [179]  But exactly this Wilsonian plan for an orderly world, implied the covenant’s death sentence. Congress, especially the Republican majority, opposed the covenant.

   Progressive Republicans disliked the way the League would distract American attention from problems at home by entangling the United States into the ‘integrity’ and independence of other nations. They desired to return to ‘isolationism’ in order to focus on shaping the smooth transition of American society.

   The larger group of Republicans was led by H.C. Lodge who felt a personal hatred for Wilson whom he considered a weak president. Moreover he criticized conceding to Japan growing power in East Asia and thus endangering the Open-Door and Chinese independence. Especially despised was Article 10 for allegedly obliging the United States to support existing empires and thus pose an opposition to the demo- cratization of the world. The U.S. might have to intervene against its own interest and convictions. The Republicans clearly missed freedom of action for the United States in the covenant.

   The American public was uncertain. After anarchists had planted a bomb in front of the Attorney General’s house, the fear of bolshevism, a Red Scare caught the Ameri- cans. Fostered by the inflammation of nationalistic sentiments and restraints on the freedom of speech during the war, a hysteria caught the masses, and thousands of ‘suspects’ were thrown into jail, some hundred were deported to Europe. The League Covenant seemed to be just that type of document that might increase contact between the USA and Communist states, Americans did not want anyone else influence their country.

   After Wilson himself was weakened by a paralytic stroke, the League was finally lost, the Senate never passed the Covenant and thus rejected the Peace Treaty as well. The United States would sign separate, bilateral treaties with Germany and Austria in 1921.[180]
 
 
 

   The son of a preacherman had failed. With high hopes and an idealistic scheme of what a better world would look like - more American, that is -, Wilson had planned to use the American world power to reform effectively all of the world. He had attempted to please everyone and had ended up angering everyone. His gospel of the new world order, safe for democracy, had included too many contradictions, had been too general and thus rendered itself untrustworthy. His idealism and absolute morality had led him to neglect the irrationality of power that appealed to many.

   Nevertheless the U.S. emerged from the conflict more powerful and wealthier than any other nation. But Americans had lost their faith in Wilson’s internationalism. The results they got made them suspicious of taking part in the dirty business of facing the responsibilities of a world power. They desired to shift foreign policy’s focus back into the well-known waters of ‘isolation’.

   The world - and America - seem to have been not yet ready for Wilsonian Inter- nationalism or an overly idealistic Dollar Diplomacy. Yet, the two approaches would be remembered and re-appear in the foreign policy of The American Century when new challenges arose.