IB History Woodrow Wilson's Peace Ideals and the Decision Not to Join the League of Nations Notes

Wilson's Wartime Peace Programme

1. Wilson linked entry into war with a new order. In April 1917, he argued that the world must be made safe for democracy.
2. The claim gave war a moral purpose. American participation would defend rights and create conditions for a lasting peace.
3. Wilson opposed a purely punitive settlement. His peace without victory speech had warned that humiliation would create future conflict.
4. Open diplomacy became a central principle. Secret agreements were blamed for mistrust, rivalry, and uncontrolled escalation.
5. Economic openness supported peace. Wilson connected reduced trade barriers and freedom of the seas with international cooperation.
6. National claims required adjustment. He accepted that borders should reflect peoples and political legitimacy more closely.
7. Collective security was the essential innovation. A permanent association of nations would deter aggression and organize peaceful settlement.

The Fourteen Points

1. Wilson presented the Fourteen Points on 8 January 1918. The address gave the United States a public programme before the war ended.
2. The first five points stated broad principles. They addressed diplomacy, navigation, trade, armaments, and colonial claims.
3. Several points proposed territorial settlements. Belgium, France, Italy, Austria Hungary, the Balkans, the Ottoman Empire, and Poland were treated separately.
4. Point fourteen proposed a general association of nations. This became the foundation for the League of Nations.
5. The programme competed with revolutionary alternatives. Wilson hoped liberal internationalism could answer Bolshevik calls for a different global order.
6. Allied governments did not accept every point equally. Britain defended naval power and imperial interests while France prioritized security against Germany.
7. The points still shaped public expectations. Nationalist movements and colonized peoples interpreted Wilson's language more broadly than he intended.

Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference

1. Wilson attended the conference personally. No sitting American president had previously taken such a direct role in European diplomacy.
2. The major decisions were dominated by the Big Four. Wilson negotiated with David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, and Vittorio Orlando.
3. France demanded security and reparations. Clemenceau wanted firm limits on German military and political recovery.
4. Britain balanced punishment with stability. Lloyd George protected maritime and imperial interests while fearing economic collapse in Germany.
5. Wilson compromised to secure the League. He accepted provisions that departed from his original principles in order to preserve collective security.
6. The Treaty of Versailles imposed major terms on Germany. Territorial losses, military restrictions, reparations, and the war responsibility clause produced resentment.
7. The League Covenant was included in the treaty. Wilson believed its institutions could correct later injustices and prevent renewed war.

Limits of Self Determination

1. Self determination was not a formal universal rule. Wilson used the idea selectively and often without clear criteria.
2. New states emerged in central and eastern Europe. Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia reflected national claims but also contained large minorities.
3. Colonial empires largely survived. Britain and France received mandates over former German and Ottoman territories.
4. African American activists challenged the contradiction. They asked how democracy abroad could coexist with segregation and racial violence at home.
5. Asian and African nationalists petitioned the conference. Many were disappointed when colonial claims received limited recognition.
6. Japan's racial equality proposal failed. Its rejection exposed racial hierarchy within the new international order.
7. The gap weakened Wilson's moral authority. Liberal principles appeared subordinate to strategic interests and imperial power.

Constitutional Politics at Home

1. Treaty ratification required a two thirds Senate majority. Wilson therefore needed support beyond the Democratic Party.
2. Republicans had won Senate control in 1918. Partisan rivalry shaped every stage of the ratification battle.
3. Wilson excluded leading Republicans from the peace delegation. This decision made cooperation more difficult before negotiations even began.
4. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge led the opposition. He supported international cooperation but demanded protections for American constitutional authority.
5. Article ten became the central dispute. League members promised to respect and preserve one another's territorial integrity and political independence.
6. Critics feared automatic military commitments. They argued that Congress alone possessed the constitutional power to declare war.
7. Supporters said the covenant created political obligation rather than compulsion. They believed collective action would reduce the likelihood of unilateral war.

Reservationists and Irreconcilables

1. Senators divided into several groups. Democrats generally supported Wilson while Republicans ranged from conditional support to complete rejection.
2. Reservationists accepted a modified treaty. Lodge proposed conditions protecting congressional authority, the Monroe Doctrine, and domestic policy.
3. Irreconcilables opposed League membership entirely. Senators William Borah and Hiram Johnson feared permanent entanglement and imperial commitments.
4. Mild reservationists offered a possible compromise. Their votes could have produced ratification with limited changes.
5. Wilson rejected the Lodge reservations. He believed they would destroy the moral and practical force of collective security.
6. Partisan distrust hardened positions. The treaty became a contest over presidential leadership as well as foreign policy.
7. The outcome was not simple isolationism. Many opponents supported international trade, arms limitation, arbitration, and diplomacy outside the League.

The Speaking Tour, Illness, and Defeat

1. Wilson appealed directly to the public in 1919. He undertook a national speaking tour to pressure senators and defend the covenant.
2. The schedule was physically exhausting. Wilson travelled thousands of miles and delivered repeated speeches.
3. He collapsed in Colorado in September. Soon afterward, he suffered a severe stroke that limited his ability to govern.
4. The administration concealed the extent of illness. Edith Wilson and close advisers controlled access and communication.
5. Compromise became even less likely. Wilson instructed Democratic senators to reject the treaty with Lodge reservations.
6. The Senate rejected ratification in November 1919. A second vote in March 1920 also failed to reach the required majority.
7. The United States never joined the League. A separate peace with Germany was concluded in 1921.

The Shandong Decision and the May Fourth Movement

1. Japan had seized German holdings in Shandong province during the war. The peace conference had to decide whether the territory would revert to China or pass to Japan.
2. The Big Four transferred German rights to Japan. China had also declared war on Germany and expected the territory's return, but wartime agreements with Japan took precedence.
3. Chinese delegates refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles. It was one of the few state refusals to sign the settlement.
4. News of the decision provoked mass protest in China. Students in Beijing organized demonstrations on 4 May 1919, giving the movement its name.
5. The May Fourth Movement broadened into cultural and political change. It encouraged boycotts of Japanese goods and helped spread new political ideas, including early interest in Marxism.
6. The episode damaged Wilson's credibility in Asia. Self-determination appeared to apply unevenly when it conflicted with the interests of a wartime ally.

Ho Chi Minh's Petition and Colonial Disappointment

1. Colonial subjects tried to use Wilsonian language for their own claims. Ho Chi Minh, then a young activist living in Paris, petitioned the conference.
2. His petition asked for basic political rights for the Vietnamese people. It called for freedoms of press and assembly and equal legal treatment under French colonial rule, not full independence.
3. Wilson's delegation did not respond. Colonial powers, including France, had no intention of opening their empires to negotiation.
4. The rejection pushed some activists toward other models. Ho Chi Minh later turned to Leninist internationalism as a more promising route to anti-colonial change.
5. Egyptian, Korean, and Indian nationalists made similar appeals. Petitions and delegations from across the colonial world hoped the principle of self-determination would apply to them, and were repeatedly disappointed.
6. The pattern reinforced a wider critique. Colonized peoples increasingly viewed Wilsonian rhetoric as reserved for Europeans rather than a universal standard.

Consequences and Historical Assessment

1. League rejection limited American institutional leadership. The organization lost the participation of the world's largest creditor and a major industrial power.
2. The United States did not withdraw from world affairs. It pursued naval agreements, debt negotiations, trade, relief, arbitration, and informal cooperation.
3. The League still functioned in several areas. It handled disputes, health, refugees, labour, and mandates with mixed results.
4. Absence weakened collective security politically. Britain and France carried greater burdens while American guarantees to France disappeared.
5. Wilson shared responsibility for defeat. His exclusion of Republicans, rigid tactics, and refusal to compromise reduced support.
6. John Milton Cooper emphasizes domestic political conflict. He presents the result as a tragic failure of leadership and partisan cooperation.
7. The decision revealed selective internationalism. Americans accepted global economic and diplomatic influence while resisting binding collective obligations.

1. These interpretations weigh economic ambition, political culture, and leadership failure differently, but each accepts that the Senate's rejection left the League without its strongest potential member.