Flight of the Eagle: The Grand Strategies That Brought America from Colonial Dependence to World Leadership

by Conrad Black

  6. THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE

  It was clear from the outset that Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and the Italian premier, Vittorio Orlando, were not going to cooperate with Wilson’s relatively altruistic view of the late enemy. Wilson’s tactic was to gamble on acceptance of the League of Nations, as the new world body was to be called, before everything else, and the other terms could follow. The Allies accepted this sequence only on condition of various concessions, and the tug of war began between Wilson’s attachment to the League and the desire of the other Allies to pick the carcass of the Central Powers. Wilson gave a draft of the Covenant of the League to the conference plenary session and returned to the United States on February 24. He had a dinner meeting with leading members of the Congress, which was a rather stormy session. Thirty-nine senators, more than enough to block passage, expressed their desire on March 2 to kill the League in its existing form. Their legal draftsman was Philander Knox, Taft’s secretary of state and Roosevelt’s attorney general, though Taft himself was pro-League. Two days later, Wilson declared in New York that any such effort would kill the entire peace agreement, and he returned to France on March 13.

  The next day, in Paris, he was presented by Marshal Foch, who enjoyed great prestige as commander of the victorious armies, with a demand for heavy but unspecified reparations by Germany and Allied occupation of Germany to the Rhine, or at least the creation of a neutral Rhineland buffer state. Wilson refused and called for the liner George Washington to return to take him and his party back to America. He also had preliminary symptoms of acute stress. Foch and Clemenceau reduced their demand to a temporary occupation of parts of Germany, and Wilson promised a defensive treaty in which Britain and the U.S. would promise to come to France’s assistance in the event of an unprovoked attack on her by Germany. This was really the key to the future: an American guarantee of France and Britain would probably have deterred even the lunatic government that eventually did rule in Germany. The Senate leaders expressed grievous reservations about the arrangement from the start and Wilson concentrated entirely on the Allies and not at all on the equally treacherous and even more intractable problems under the dome of the United States Capitol.

  The Italians demanded specific performance on the Treaty of London, which had brought them into the war in 1915, under which they were to move their border up to the Brenner Pass, which would bring 200,000 German-speaking Austrians into Italy. Wilson agreed to this before the demographers on his staff could warn him that this was contrary to his national-ethnic self-determination policy. The further Italian demand of the Adriatic port of Fiume, promised in 1915, was unacceptable to Wilson, and the Italian leaders, Premier Orlando and Foreign Minister Sidney Sonnino, walked out. Wilson then appealed directly to the people of Italy for a fair peace. Orlando and Sonnino did come back in May, and Italy did succeed in taking Fiume by negotiation with the new kingdom of Yugoslavia, but for Wilson to squander this much credibility and capital on a trivial matter with the Italians left little room for optimism that he could deal with the much more formidable leaders of much stronger countries, Britain and France, or the faction heads of a U.S. Congress that was now almost in open revolt. Italy was only asking for what it had been promised, before there were any Fourteen Points, and Italy had taken 10 times as many war dead as the United States had. If it had been as confident of its martial ability as the other conferees were, it would just have taken what it wanted, but in these conditions, that would have been hazardous, though the poet and aviator Gabriele d’Annunzio took Fiume and was only dislodged by the Italian Navy, after governing for a year in proto-fascist manner, in 1920.

  More of a problem were the Japanese, who had taken advantage of the war to enter it on the Allied side in August 1914 and confine their war-making activities to trying to take over permanently all German interests in China, especially the province of Shantung. The European powers were not minded, during the war, to argue the point, though the United States did, and the ambiguous Lansing-Ishii Agreement of November 1917 gave what Lansing considered temporary, and the Japanese emissary, Viscount Kikujito Ishii, considered permanent, “paramount” interests in China, based on the enunciation that “territorial propinquity creates special relations.” Of course, this was diplomatic humbug, and at the Paris Peace Conference Japan demanded, and did not receive, a declaration of racial equality, and then faced an attempt by the other powers to divide German interests in China between all of them, although Japan had taken those interests over and browbeaten China into a quasi-acquiescence in that.

  Wilson finally acceded to Japan’s demands, since, as a practical matter, there wasn’t much to be done about them, on the condition that Japan acknowledged that Shantung would revert to China apart from economic rights. The Open Door and China’s territorial integrity were sanctimoniously reiterated, but were, in fact, being steadily whittled away. The United States was the only country that made even the slightest pretense of concern for the Chinese interest in these matters. (If Japan had rallied to the Allies for any other than completely self-serving purposes, such as by sending two divisions to fight in France, or even against Turkey, she could have established a claim to all of Germany’s Pacific islands and a much-enhanced status in the councils of the world. Portugal, though hardly a heavyweight country militarily, bravely volunteered modest forces for the Western Front, though her own interests were not in play and the Portuguese were only responding under their centuries-old treaty with Britain.)

  The Allies had deployed 195,000 soldiers to Russia from 1918 to 1920, led by 70,000 Japanese, ostensibly to protect their interests, but really to seize an eastern chunk of Russia. The second largest contribution was from the Czech Republic—Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war whom the Bolshevik leaders released to return to the Western Front via Vladivostok, to join the Western Allies against the Central Powers. Most of them did not embark and instead engaged in the Russian Civil War against the Bolsheviks. The British landed 40,000 men at Archangel and Murmansk to secure vast supplies that had been deposited there and to assist the White Russians in their struggle with the Bolsheviks. The United States sent 24,000 men, and there were French and Canadians as well as, in the Caucasus Greek contingents, but it was a shambles and was never coordinated nor united by any mission statement. The Western powers left in 1920, and the combination of Soviet military success and American diplomatic pressure forced Japan back to its prewar frontiers in 1924.

  Wilson tried to conciliate the reasonable Republicans such as Taft, by agreeing that the U.S. would refrain from participation in the mandate system, which was to provide for administration over seized German colonies; would oppose League interference in tariffs and immigration; would assure that there would be no interference with “regional understandings,” such as the Monroe Doctrine; and would assure that any country could withdraw from the League on two years’ notice.

  7. THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

  The Treaty of Versailles was presented to the Germans on May 7 as a fait accompli; there would be none of the negotiating for which its emissaries had prepared. The treaty fixed responsibility for the Great War on Germany; took away from Germany Alsace-Lorraine, the western provinces of what became Poland, all colonies, and, until its future should be determined by plebiscite in 1935, the Saar; assessed reparations that later aggregated $56 billion; and imposed unilateral disarmament on Germany. The Covenant of the League of Nations was attached to the treaty. This established the secretariat at Geneva; set up an assembly and a council, on which the permanent members would be the U.S., Britain, France, Italy, and Japan; and pledged member states to avoid war, disarm, submit disagreements to the League, impose sanctions on aggressor states, and set up a Permanent Court of International Justice. Germany, under great protest, signed it on June 28, a week after its navy had scuttled itself at Scapa Flow, where it had been concentrated after the armistice. Over 70 ships, including 16 battleships and battle cruisers, were sunk, a pitiful end to a great fleet that anta
gonized Britain and was never, except for two inconclusive days, put to any practical use. It was the capstone of Wilhelmine strategy. Wilson departed France as soon as the treaty was signed, and returned to the United States on July 8, and submitted the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate on July 10, 1919.

  This had been the first attempt at so comprehensive a reorganization of the world since the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and was the first attempt the United States had ever made to participate in deliberations that affected the whole world, or any part of it outside the Americas. Wilson had bet on the epochal peace-making and imposing possibilities of a world organization, and in order to achieve European and Japanese adherence to it, had sacrificed any pretense of a peace without victory or without vindictiveness. In the great struggle between France and Germany, France had made an astonishing comeback from the debacle of the Franco-Prussian War, but a united Germany, the bequest of Bismarck, was a larger population and France could be secure only if the alliance with the British and Americans was solid. Wilson assumed that Germany could be suitably rehabilitated as a democracy. Although the principal Allies were milling about with expeditionary forces in Russia, where a civil war was in progress, Wilson considered recapturing Russia for the family of civilized nations to be a project for the future, after the disposition of more urgent business.

  Woodrow Wilson was a pioneer in international organization, and if the League could be set up and the United States drawn into the world to support the maintenance of peace in the principal regions of the world, democracy might be safe after all, as he had promised. The battle now turned to the United States Senate, where Wilson was just starting to realize that there could be a substantial problem. The Democrats were pretty solidly with the president, and the moderate Republicans, led by Lodge, would participate in the League, under conditions, though it has always been difficult to determine if Lodge was sincere or just masquerading as seeking to support the president on the fulfillment of unacceptable conditions. Unfortunately, Wilson’s inflexibility made Lodge’s opposition relatively easy to dress in comparative moderation. And the western isolationists, the “Irreconcilables,” were led by Hiram Johnson, William E. Borah, and Robert M. La Follette. Wilson agreed to interpretative reservations that would not require the consent of other signatory countries, but these were insufficient for the hard-line isolationists, who held up consideration of the treaty until September 10.

  Wilson set out on a speaking tour in the interior and west of the country to promote the treaty, on September 4, and Borah and other Irreconcilables conducted their own tour, paid for by wealthy Republican stalwarts Andrew Mellon and Henry Clay Frick. Wilson, a formidable, if overly erudite, public speaker, was well-received wherever he went, but on September 25, at Pueblo, Colorado, his health broke down, and he returned to Washington, where he suffered a massive stroke on October 2. He was no longer physically capable to act as president, and his judgment had been damaged also. On November 6, 1919, Lodge reported out a bill that included 14 reservations, but at least the United States would have joined the League and turned its back on isolationism. On November 18, in a letter to supporters, Wilson dismissed Lodge’s bill as the “nullification” rather than ratification of the treaty. It was voted down the next day, as was unconditional acceptance (53–38). If Wilson had endorsed Lodge’s version, it would have passed easily. The British and French, desperate for any American involvement as guarantors of Western European democracy, would have leapt like gazelles at almost any American ratification, no matter how hemmed about with escape hatches. But Wilson, barely compos mentis, resisted flexibility even when his wife suggested it. He even vetoed a declaration that the war with Germany was concluded.

  A functioning and non-delusional Wilson might have made his deal with Lodge, as there were only 13 Irreconcilables. Mrs. Wilson largely controlled the government now, and allowed her husband only a few minutes a day of normal exposure to business, so fragile was his condition. By not publicly admitting the extent of Wilson’s incapacitation, she denied him the public sympathy he would have received, and also denied the government the adequately effective leadership able-bodied and clear-headed cabinet members could have given. None of them remotely approached Wilson’s stature or intellect, but they were passably competent and decent men who would have done the necessary. If Vice President Marshall had declared Wilson incapacitated, he could have taken over the management of the government and he and Lansing, bandying about the name of the stricken president, could probably have got Lodge to help adopt most of what Wilson was seeking. Lodge objected especially to Article X of the League Covenant, which committed the League to resist aggression and was construed by Lodge as meaning that American forces could be committed to combat without a vote of the U.S. Congress. This was nonsense in fact and was largely just illustrative of the personal antipathy between Lodge and Wilson, and of Lodge’s desire to find an issue for the Republicans to win with in the 1920 elections.

  In February 1920, the Senate, given the importance of the issue, agreed to reconsider the treaty, but positions had not changed, and Wilson, who was almost eager to die fighting for his treaty, would brook no compromise. He had just enough authority left to prevent all of the Senate Democrats from deserting to the Lodge compromise, and for good measure fired Lansing, for having convened the cabinet without notice to Wilson, though no business was transacted in the president’s name. Bainbridge Colby, who had served Wilson as a legal adviser at the Paris negotiations, was appointed to replace Lansing as secretary of state.

  8. THE 1920 ELECTION

  Wilson asked the Democrats to make the 1920 election “a solemn referendum” on the League of Nations, and when they convened at San Francisco in late June they did endorse the League and the treaty, but professed a willingness to consider “reservations making clearer or more specific the obligations of the United States.” The Republicans had met earlier in June in Chicago, and as they were split between the western Progressive isolationists and Irreconcilables, and the Taft, Root, Hughes wing of enlightened juridically minded easterners, the Republicans waffled and opposed the League but not “an agreement among the nations to preserve the peace of the world.” The Republican convention was deadlocked for some ballots and then the party bosses, meeting in the original “smoke-filled room” in the Blackstone Hotel, settled upon the innocuous, genial, and probably suggestible or even malleable Senator Warren Gamaliel Harding of Ohio for president, and the taciturn governor of Massachusetts, Calvin Coolidge, who had gained popularity in the midst of the Red and anarchist scare by breaking a police strike in Boston, for vice president.

  The Democrats, after 44 ballots, chose the governor of Ohio, James M. Cox, and the dynamic and evocatively named Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt for vice president. The Socialists nominated Debs again, despite the fact that he was serving a 10-year prison term for sedition because of his lack of enthusiasm for the war effort. The Prohibitionists nominated a candidate again, although, in one of the most insane policy initiatives in its history, the United States in 1919 had already ratified the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages, thus reducing most of the entire adult population to the status of lawbreakers and handing over one of America’s greatest industries to organized crime, some of whose leading figures now became more prominent folkloric figures than its politicians.

  The country was already settling into an era of unbridled absurdity and this election was not a solemn referendum on anything. The mood was one of frivolity, punctuated by reflexive fear. Because of Bolshevik propaganda and a modest spike in labor militancy, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer organized a full-scale Red Scare and on January 2, 1920, had 2,700 suspected communist agitators arrested in dragnets around the country. The Republicans promised “a return to normalcy.” The country didn’t want to hear any more of Woodrow Wilson’s Old Testament call to greatness nor any talk of a Covenant with anything, except a speakeasy and
the stock market. Harding ran a front-porch campaign and just rode the trend. Wilson, so recently the conquering hero, was thought a quavering, peevish, churlish old man, hiding in the White House. There was a recession in the country, and considerable doubt about what the purpose of entering the war had been.

  Harding won, 16.15 million to 9.15 million for Cox and 920,000 for Debs. (The Prohibitionists won 189,000 votes, even though Prohibition was already in effect.) The electoral vote was 404 to 127. The Republicans had almost 62 percent of the vote to 34 percent for Cox to just over 4 percent for the others. Given the Democratic hold on the South, it was a remarkable victory for a mindless, no-name Republican good-time-Charlie campaign, and a heavy rejection of Wilson. The great expansion of the franchise was due to the granting of the right to vote to women. Harding chose Charles Evans Hughes as secretary of state, and he and Andrew Mellon at Treasury and the international engineer and aid administrator Herbert C. Hoover at the Commerce Department would be the stars of the administration. Once in office, the Republicans showed no disposition at all to internationalism, and Harding lost little time in burying League participation once and for all.

  This astonishing cameo appearance by America on the world stage had suddenly arisen in the brilliant mind of Woodrow Wilson, as the predestined role of America to lead the nations of the world to durable peace. And it had swiftly vanished in the fickleness of the American public and the academic unsuitability of Wilson to the vagaries of the checks-and-balances political system. He has been much disparaged for excessive idealism and for tactical mismanagement of his ambitions, and he has also been criticized for insufficient reverence for the Constitution of the United States. But he grasped that the United States could never embark on foreign enterprises without some idealistic as well as practical basis to them, and that the world could not be safe for democracy without the United States in the front lines of those defending it. As for the Constitution, he can’t be claimed to have foreseen the problems of gridlock in Washington or the prevalence of interests throughout the Congress, but he certainly had premonitions of these problems.