Unwilling to entrust peace negotiations to subordinates, Wilson took the
unprecedented and controversial step of assuming direct control of the U.S.
mission. He left for Europe on December 4, 1918, to attend the peace
conference in person. This meant that his ideas about the shape of postwar
Europe would be heard, and signalled the importance of America's claim
to a central place in any settlement. Enthusiastic crowds greeted Wilson in
Paris and London and inflated his hopes for a peace along the lines of his
Fourteen Points. But, in the end, Wilson misread public opinion in Europe
and the history of European rivalries. Wilson's proposals prevailed only in
part, generally where dismantling empires and disarmament meant breaking
up the might of the defeated Central Powers. What had been the
Austro-Hungarian Empire and the western part of the Russian Empire were
reorganized on the basis of nationalities, and the Versailles conference
recognized the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Newly independent
countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia—still ethnically
mixed but designed to satisfy the national allegiances of most of their
populations—fulfilled Wilson's hopes. And the major powers committed
themselves to a League of Nations. He failed, however, to prevent Britain
and France from requiring Germany to pay heavy reparations to the victorious
powers. The French, moreover, got the right to occupy the Rhineland
for fifteen years. He failed likewise to win the United States Senate over to
his project for a League of Nations.
World History
