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Conflict within the American Delegation at Paris over Wilsonian Policy toward the Russian Borderlands∗
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
The protection of Imperial Russian territorial integrity was, when the peace conference convened in Paris, one of the firmest and least ambivalent elements of Woodrow Wilson's Russian policy.1 The Russia to which he applied this policy was in fact an empire, including nationality groups incorporated, often forceably, during the 17th and 18th centuries. Many of these ethnic nationalities — and especially those with which Wilson and his fellow peacemakers were familiar — were concentrated along the borders of European Russia. Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine were perhaps the best known of the ethnic nationalities, each with defined geographic areas, which had formed part of imperial Russia. Such nationality centers, many of which had long established administrative borders which changed little as a result of the peace conference, are the Russian borderlands to which this paper refers.
1. See, for example, Fike, Claude E., “The United States and Russian Territorial Problems, 1917-1920,” Historian, XXIV (May 1962).Google Scholar
2. Lansing to Wilson, 2 January 1918, Woodrow Wilson Papers, Library of Congress (hereafter referred to as Wilson papers); see also Lansing diary, 7 December 1917, Robert Lansing Papers, Library of Congress (hereafter referred to as Lansing diary or papers). Support of Russia's territorial integrity did not mean that Lansing was opposed to redrawing the map of Europe in some instances. For example, see George Barany, “Wilsonian Central Europe: Lansing's Contribution,” Historian, XXVIII (1966).Google Scholar
3. Cited in Baker, Ray Stannard, Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1939), VIII, 175; Lansing diary, 4 July 1918. The Allies did not necessarily agree with America's position. Walter Lippmann told Colonel House of a British official's statement “that the United States was the only country even partially committed to the territorial restoration of Russia.” Lippmann to House, 21 March 1918, Edward House Papers, Edward House Collection, Yale University (hereafter cited as House papers).Google Scholar
4. For evidence of this belief in the emergence of a “restored” Russia see Linda Killen, “The Search for a Democratic Russia: the Wilson Administration's policy toward Russia, 1917-1921,” (, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1975); Wilson to Lansing, 21 October 1918, cited in Baker, VIII, 495.Google Scholar
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12. See Lord, Robert H., et al., “Special Report on Western Russia and Poland,” 11 November 1918, Inquiry Document #348, ACNP (hereafter cited as Lord, “Special Report”).Google Scholar
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23. The United States did grant de facto recognition to Finland. Peace conference records suggest that the prodding of Herbert Hoover and the exigencies of his relief program contributed to this decision. Miller, Diary, XVI, 213, 218, and entries for 11 and 12 April 1919 and the referenced documents; Hoover, Herbert, The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958), pp. 123–126 (hereafter cited as Hoover).Google Scholar
24. For Lansing's request to Wilson and the reply, see Lansing to Wilson, 1 May 1919, Lansing papers, and Wilson to Lansing, 3 May 1919, cited in Hoover, p. 125; Miller, , Diary, XVI, 247.Google Scholar
25. , Miller, Diary, XX, 159.Google Scholar
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27. That same day Wilson said he thought the conference could settle the boundary between Ukraine and Poland. Since this particular boundary was the cause of active military conflict, Wilson apparently put the need for stability above Russian rights in this instance. Council of Four minutes, 8 May 1919, 180.03401/1.Google Scholar
28. Article 117 is cited in Wheeler-Bennett, John, Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace (New York: MacMillan, 1966), Appendix XII, 451; see also Miller, Diary, XIX, 140.Google Scholar
29. “Questions Remaining to be Settled After German and Austrain Peace Treaties are Disposed of, “House to Wilson, 22 May 1919, House papers; House diary, 13 May 1919.Google Scholar
30. Minutes of the Council of Four, 23, 24, and 27 May 1919, cited in Mathis, pp. 86–93. Wilson's position may be explained in part by his unwillingness to draw sharp lines in the already very tenuous inter-allied division of interests. See Seymour, IV, 475.Google Scholar
31. Minutes of American Commissioners, 23 July 1919, 184.00101/121.Google Scholar
32. House (in Paris) via Phillips (at State Department) to Wilson (in Los Angeles), 20 September 1919, Wilson papers.Google Scholar
33. Minutes of American Commissioners, 16 June 1919, 184.00101/89; Poole to Phillips, 4 November 1919, 861.00/5498; Lansing desk diary, 2, 11 and 13 December 1919 and 15 January 1920, Lansing papers.Google Scholar
34. , Lansing, Peace Negotiations, pp. 99–100, 190–212.Google Scholar
35. House diary, 28 April 1917, 19 September and 28 October 1918.Google Scholar