Woodrow Wilson and the Defeat of the Treaty of Versailles

After the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Woodrow Wilson had come back to America with the Treaty of Versailles that would create a League of Nations. The League would supposedly have the power to prevent all future wars and make the world a better place. The American public seemed to be in favor of the treaty and the League, but the treaty was never ratified and the United States never entered the League of Nations. The statement "It was the strength of the opposition forces, both liberal and conservative, rather than the ineptitude and stubbornness of President Wilson that led to the Senate defeat of the Treaty of Versailles" is slightly valid except that Wilson's stubbornness did play a large role in the failure of the treaty.

The "irreconcilables", or isolationists, were an opposing group that had a profound influence on the treaty's destruction. The irreconcilables were led by a man named William Borah and consisted of fourteen Republican senators and two Democratic Senators. The irreconcilables would see to it that the treaty would never take form because it would commit America to the rest of the world, and with that, bring about foreign entanglements. The irreconcilables also argued that the treaty would put the issues that dealt with America in the hands of other countries and that the basis of the League was mistaken in the idea of using "war to prevent war". Since sixteen senators of the ninety-six in the Senate at that time voted against the treaty no matter what, the influence of the voting by the isolationists is a source of significant opposition, especially since in the third vote for the treaty, the two thirds majority fell short by seven votes. The irreconcilables were backed by German Americans who thought the treaty was too harsh on Germany, by Italian Americans who disliked Wilson for not letting Italy seize Fiume, by Irish Americans were unhappy that the treaty did not provide for Irish independence, and by Progressives were unhappy with the terms of the treaty as well.

Another group that had a major effect on the defeat of the treaty was the reservationists. The reservationists led by Henry Cabot Lodge opposed the treaty as it was, but would agree with the concept of the League if there were amendments attached to the treaty. This opposition grew from partisanship, an example of which would be in one of the attempts to ratify the treaty where only one Republican voted for the treaty without reservations. Henry Cabot Lodge had done everything in his power to build up opposition to the Treaty of Versailles by delaying its passage through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which Lodge had filled with senators who already opposed it in any form. Lodge's main amendment to the treaty would remove any moral obligation of the United States to Article X, which struck at the heart of Wilson's treaty. The Republican politics involved with this opposition had played a large role in the growth of the treaty's resistance as well as Wilson's stubbornness. Lodge even tried to reason with Democrats, but because Borah threatened to remove him as majority leader, Lodge broke off his negotiations.

The fact that Wilson was so incredibly stubborn and unable to compromise was the true reason for the fatality of the treaty. Lodges amendment on the article was something that the Democrats in the senate were willing to compromise for, yet Wilson was not. Wilson thought that if anyone should "impair" Article X of the treaty that it would betray the purpose of why America was in the war. Wilson was under the pretense that the Senate would accept a League without reservations rather than the absence of the League. Herbert Hoover even warned Wilson about the urgency of finding a common ground for the treaty, otherwise the popular support for the treaty would wane and the treaty would never be ratified. Wilson's stubbornness led him into a tour of the country where he would give speeches, but the result of this tour was that Wilson had become sick and even more disagreeable to compromise. Wilson's inflexibility caused many of the important Democratic newspaper to be in favor of Lodge's reservations. In the final vote for the treaty, Wilson appealed to his party to shoot down the treaty with the reservations in it, because of his request twenty-three Democrats voted against the treaty with the irreconcilables and the treaty failed. This being the immediate cause of the treaty's failure shows that Wilson was too obstinate to accept compromise.

Ultimately, opposition to the Treaty of Versailles and Wilson were the reasons the Treaty was never passed in the United States. The irreconcilables were the main adversaries of the treaty, and the reservationists and Wilson were battling each other about the treaty and its forms. The defeat of the treaty displays the United State's affinity toward isolationism.

Sources:
Brinkley, Alan. "American History: A Survey." ed. 11