Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Prologue: 1919-1945-1989
- PART ONE PEACE PLANNING AND THE ACTUALITIES OF THE ARMISTICE
- 1 Germany's Peace Aims and the Domestic and International Constraints
- 2 “Had We Known How Bad Things Were in Germany, We Might Have Got Stiffer Terms”: Great Britain and the German Armistice
- 3 French War Aims and Peace Planning
- 4 Wilsonian Concepts and International Realities at the End of the War
- 5 A Comment
- PART TWO THE PEACEMAKERS AND THEIR HOME FRONTS
- PART THREE THE RECONSTRUCTION OF EUROPE AND THE SETTLEMENT OF ACCOUNTS
- PART FOUR THE LEGACY AND CONSEQUENCES OF VERSAILLES
- PART FIVE ANTECEDENTS AND AFTERMATHS REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR-GUILT QUESTION AND THE SETTLEMENT
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Wilsonian Concepts and International Realities at the End of the War
from PART ONE - PEACE PLANNING AND THE ACTUALITIES OF THE ARMISTICE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2013
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Prologue: 1919-1945-1989
- PART ONE PEACE PLANNING AND THE ACTUALITIES OF THE ARMISTICE
- 1 Germany's Peace Aims and the Domestic and International Constraints
- 2 “Had We Known How Bad Things Were in Germany, We Might Have Got Stiffer Terms”: Great Britain and the German Armistice
- 3 French War Aims and Peace Planning
- 4 Wilsonian Concepts and International Realities at the End of the War
- 5 A Comment
- PART TWO THE PEACEMAKERS AND THEIR HOME FRONTS
- PART THREE THE RECONSTRUCTION OF EUROPE AND THE SETTLEMENT OF ACCOUNTS
- PART FOUR THE LEGACY AND CONSEQUENCES OF VERSAILLES
- PART FIVE ANTECEDENTS AND AFTERMATHS REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR-GUILT QUESTION AND THE SETTLEMENT
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In coming to grips with the international realities at the end of World War I, a few preliminary observations about “Wilsonian concepts” are in order. That term can mean many things, of course; but at its core sits the League of Nations idea. If this is the shorthand sum and substance of Wilsonianism, it should be pointed out that the League idea had many authors and that the concept was in a constant state of metamorphosis. Wilson's most important contributions to it were grand synthesis and propagation.
At a fairly early stage in the war, a new internationalist movement had come into being in the United States. This movement consisted of two divergent aggregations of activists -“progressive internationalists” and “conservative internationalists” Wilson's relationship with each group was consequential, but fundamentally so with the progressive internationalists. Among other things, the genesis of that relationship has important implications not only for Wilsonian concepts and international realities at the end of the war, but also for the domestic political struggle of 1919-20. As Gilbert Hitchcock, the Democratic leader in the Senate, declared at the start of the great debate over the Treaty of Versailles, “Internationalism has come, and we must choose what form the internationalism is to take.” No one ever put the matter more succinctly.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Treaty of VersaillesA Reassessment after 75 Years, pp. 111 - 130Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998
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