League Of Nations
The Versaille Treaty, an agreement for
peaceful terms among the warring
nations of World War I, was extinguished by
the insatiable desires of all
parties involved. Woodrow Wilson, an
inflexible, idealistic, righteous President
was up against the vengeful
Allies. Each with their own imperialistic views,
conflicted as peace
negotiations began. Wilson wanting to "make the world safe
for Democracy"
swooped into Paris to negotiate his Fourteen Points, leaving
the Republicans
impotent state back in the United States. Thus, Wilson’s ideas
faced great
opposition by the Big Business Republican Party fearful he was going
to run
for reelection and by the Allies whom were looking to occupy
German
territory. It became apparent that the Allies were far more concerned
with
imperialism than the idealism Wilson pushed for in the League of
Nations. This
League leads to the basic understanding to the failure of
the Versaille Treaty.
The League of Nations faced great resistance first
by the Allies and later the
Republicans, which led to the Wilson -Lodge
feud, the ultimate cause of
destruction. Woodrow Wilson was thought to have a
Messiah complex due to his
desire to dictate peace and his unwillingness to
compromise. At the end of World
War I he compiled Fourteen Points,
ultimately as propaganda. His main goal was
to "make the world safe for
Democracy," in other words, extend America’s
power and ideals through foreign
nations. Of these Fourteen Points the most
important was the League of
Nations, an attempt to reorder the world. However, a
great opponent of this
"Wilsonian League" was Henry Cabot Lodge, a
Republican opponent.
Ultimately, many of the obstacles Wilson faced could have
been over come had
he publicly admitted he was not running for reelection once
his prominence
grew if the League was authorized. He also would have avoided
defeat if he
had been more willing to compromise with the republicans and added
on a few
revisions. Once the treaty was fabricated it met Republican
opposition.
In 1918 Wilson had appealed for a Democratic Congress to
support his policy,
however, due to issues at home the voters did the
opposite. With Republicans in
Control of both houses opposition was
immense. Once the Senate denied the
League, Wilson returned to Paris for
modifications, but once again he faced
resistance. France was looking to
obtain the German Rhineland; likewise France
and Japan were looking to gain
territory. The outcome was the sacrifice of many
of Wilson’s Fourteen Points
to establish a stronghold for the League of
Nation. However, the modified
treaty was undermined by the return of soldiers
when it was apparent that
"wartime idealism" had plummeted and the war for
democracy had failed seeing
that the Allies "greedy Imperialists." The
illibreals, foreign groups and
anti-British all had different views of the
treaty, but ultimately it didn’t
matter because it only brought more attention
to an immerging "problem."
Republicans felt they had the right to revise the
treaty when it returned
from Paris because they had had no representative in at
Peace Conference
in France due to Wilson and also because their soldiers had
fought in the
war. This sort of division was what defeated the Treaty, American
soldiers
had not fought, Republican and Democrat soldiers had. Thus Lodge
delayed the
treaty by holding hearings in which foreign representatives sighted
their
objections to the pact. Lodge then began to tact reservations on the
treaty.
However not all approved, many mild reservationists felt that
Lodge’s
reservation were too strong. They could have been persuaded by the
Wilson to
join the Democratic side, but he didn’t defer to them. In an
attempt to fight
Lodge’s reservations, Wilson toured across the country,
however this is what
brought the ultimate demise of the Versaille Treaty.
After a powerful speech on
the behalf of the League of Nations, Wilson
suffered a stroke. With no Leader in
the Senate to replace him, Lodge had
control. Once Wilson was even capable of
making decisions, he refused to
compromise his beliefs to Lodge. However, public
opinion still favored the
treaty (with some reservations) and when the Senate
voted it down, they were
forced to revote by the public. Lodge then entered into
secret negotiations
with the Democrats, which landed him in an accusation of
treachery, and Lodge
eventually dropped these negotiations. Wilson then directed
his democratic
following to reject the treaty, but they felt the pact could no
longer be
ratified, thus many vote in favor of it. The public never being able
to
directly express their views of the treaty gained the opportunity
when
Harding ran for president, whom was anti-League. This outcome was
the end all to
the Varsaille Treaty. Ultimately, many factors led to the
demise of the
Versialle Treaty. Had Wilson not been so hard headed and
willing to compromise
the treaty might have survived. Had he involved the
Republicans in the original
peace conference the treaty may have serviced and
Lodge may have not pushed him
into a corner. With two different concerns,
Wilson’s being the League of
Nations and Lodge’s being and avoidance of
division within the Republican
Party, the two refused to negotiate with
each other. And ultimately Republicans
had little to gain through a
Democratic treaty, designed to "make the world
safe for Democracy." Wilson’s
stroke intensified the odds against the treaty
and with the public still in
favor of isolation its failure was inevitable.