Woodrow Wilson was the president of the United States from 1913 to
1921 and the political leader of his country during the years of World War
I. Wilson charted a course of neutrality for the United States during the first
years of the war, but his policies in defense of what he considered American
rights involved his country in confrontations with the belligerent powers.
He wanted to avoid American military intervention, but, at the same time,
he wanted to play a political role, especially as mediator and peacemaker,
in the unfolding events.
In the end, Wilson led the United States into the war in early 1917, directed
the mobilization of America's resources, and determined the policy of his
government toward America's allies and opponents. He emerged as a leading
figure in both the Armistice negotiations that ended the fighting and in the
peace negotiations that established the postwar order in Europe. Thus, Wilson
stands as the first American president to take the role of global leader.
Woodrow Wilson was bom in Staunton, Virginia, on December 28, 1 856,
the son of a Presbyterian minister. Educated at Princeton and Johns Hopkins
as both a lawyer and a historian, he made his mark in the academic world
as a college professor and as Princeton's president before entering politics.
He won the govemorship of New Jersey in 1910, and he was elected
president two years later. The Democratic Wilson pushed his own brand of
Progressivism, calling for renewed govemmental efforts to restore economic
competition and protection for the small producer and consumer.
During the years before World War I, Wilson conducted a program of
domestic reform called "the New Freedom" that, in theory, tried to limit
reliance on executive regulatory agencies and to establish a more coordi
nated legislative program between Congress and the presidency. His foreign
policy focused on issues close to home such as the crisis in Mexico
following that country's revolution of 1910, where Wilson practiced his
"missionary diplomacy," a policy that encouraged democracy and progressive
reform in the Western Hemisphere. Wilson's internationalism, like his
domestic policy, looked to strong leadership, but it also caused him, his
critics said, to meddle too much in others' affairs and to try to control events.
When war broke out in July 1914, Wilson called upon his countrymen to
remain neutral in thought as well as deed. Given his respect for the British
system of government and institutions, Wilson favored the Allied side
against the Central Powers, and the course of the war led him into sharp
conflict with the German government. Although the British infringed on
American rights on the high seas, the German submarine campaign against
merchant shipping brought harsher condemnation from Wilson. The British
threatened property, but the Germans took lives. When a German submarine
sank the British passenger liner Lusitania in May 1915, killing over a
thousand civilians, including 128 Americans, Wilson pressured Berlin to
halt unrestricted use of the submarine. He made it clear that otherwise the
United States was now sufficiently interested in the course of the conflict
to enter the war against Germany.
Wilson tried to act as mediator between the two sides, possibly with the
hope of augmenting American global influence as well as bringing the
carnage to an end. He was reelected, in a tight contest, in 1916 as the
candidate who had kept America out of war. And as late as 1916, he placed
limits on the buildup of American land and naval forces in order to promote
the position of the United States as a neutral.
With the resumption of unlimited submarine warfare by Germany in early
1917, Wilson led the United States into World War I. The submarine issue was
the immediate cause, but biographers of Wilson see a larger motive: with the
failure of mediation, Wilson thought that only entering the war would allow
the United States an important place in shaping the peace settlement.
Wilson appointed strong military leaders in the persons of General John
Pershifig and Admiral William Sims to wage the war in Europe. He gave
both of them, but especially Pershing, wide latitude in conducting the
American role in the fighting. When the course of domestic economic
mobilizafion broke down, Wilson put Bernard Baruch in a position to direct
much of the U.S. economy and turned increasingly to powerful boards and
commissions to coordinate AmericaiT policy and promote the war.
The American president became the spokesman in the eyes of the world
for the Allied side in January 1918, when he set down the outlines of a
generous peace settlement in his Fourteen Points. It was a program for a
new world order that many on both sides of the fighting lines found hopeful
and inspiring. He took on a dominant role in the diplomacy of World War I
in the closing weeks of the fighting. German leaders approached Wilson in
order to negotiate an armistice. Wilson's distrust of Germany's governing
elites led him to insist that Germany adopt a parliamentary form of government
similar to that of Britain before the shooting could come to a stop. His
call for an end to "monarchical autocrats" was a clear demand that Kaiser
Wilhelm II give up the throne.
Wilson left the United States for Europe in late 1918 in order to participate
directly in the peace negotiations. There he found Allied leaders
committed to a harsh peace. Both their own views and the pressure from
their electorates led France's Georges Clemenceau and Britain's David
Lloyd George away from a peace of reconciliation with Germany.
In the end, Wilson gave in to many of the demands of the countries
alongside which the United States had fought. But he put his imprint on the
settlement in his successful calls for national self-determination and for treaty
arrangements to protect national minorities. But primarily Wilson hoped that
the League of Nations, a postwar association of the leading powers of the
world, would serve to create a just and stable peacetime system.
America's refusal to enter the League stands as the greatest disappointment
Wilson saw contained in the peace settlement. Historians criticize
Wilson himself, however, for his failure to lay the groundwork for American
acceptance of membership. They note that the Democratic president neglected
to bring leading Republican senators with him to Europe to take
part in the peace negotiations. Moreover, a rigid personality that had always
characterized Wilson's dealing with his political opponents made difficult
any compromise with major American figures such as Senator Henry Cabot
Lodge of Massachusetts. Wilson also failed to cultivate public opinion
sufficiently to accept his brand of internationalism.
Blocked by his opponents at home, Wilson tried to rally the American
people. He had long been burdened by fragile health, and his railroad tour
of the United States led, in October 1919, to a stroke and complete physical
collapse. The United States Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles with
Germany and thus refused to enter the League of Nations. Wilson's hopes
that the war would lead to a world organization that included the United
States were not realized.
Woodrow Wilson remained an invalid for the final year and a half of his
term of office, and he died in Washington, D.C., on February 3, 1924.
World History
