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Woodrow Wilson And The League Of Nations (стр. 1 из 3)

Essay, Research Paper

The tragic story of the League of Nations centers around the man who conceived it and offered it to the world, who developed its charter and bore the pains of its formulation at the Peace Conference in France, and who broke down in exhaustion when his own nation, the United States, refused to ratify it in the Senate. Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born December 28, 1856 in Staunton, Virginia. His father was a Presbyterian minister, and Woodrow was a deeply religious man throughout his life. He was fascinated by politics and longed to be a statesman like England’s Prime Minister Gladstone. He wrote several books on government and taught political economy at Princeton University. As an educational reformer he was unanimously chosen president of Princeton in 1902. Wilson emphasized broad liberal studies more than specialization and mere preparation for a career. In 1910 the Democratic Party nominated him for governor of New Jersey, and his persuasive expression of progressive principles swept him to victory. His liberal reforms were successful, and in 1912 he won the Democratic presidential nomination and then a popular plurality over the divided Republicans and Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party. He offered “New Freedom” and set out to break up the privileges of trusts and tariffs; he championed the worker’s right to overtime pay beyond an eight-hour day. However, his greatest challenges were to be in foreign policy after the outbreak of the World War in 1914.

From the close of the Napoleonic wars and the Congress of Vienna in 1815 some popular support for peace societies which were founded at that time and a concern for international law enabled national leaders to solve many of their differences by means of arbitration. Between 1815 and1900, of the two hundred cases in which States agreed to arbitration, not a single case led to a war. However, the States had not pledged that they would submit to arbitration in every international conflict. In 1890 the United States and ten other American republics signed a Pan American Treaty of Arbitration, but it was not ratified. In 1899 and again in 1907 the Russian Czar Nicholas II called a conference at The Hague to discuss limitation of arms and peaceful methods to settle international disputes. A “Permanent Court of Arbitration” was set up which could be used to resolve differences, and in fact three dangerous conflicts between large powers were settled in this manner. Theodore Roosevelt submitted a dispute with Mexico to arbitration, and in 1903 Britain and France signed a treaty. Roosevelt followed their example and signed arbitration treaties with France, Germany, Portugal, and Switzerland. He was negotiating with Great Britain, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Japan, and others when the Senate led by Henry Cabot Lodge insisted on approving each treaty. T. R. felt this undercut his efforts and therefore abandoned them. Roosevelt supported arbitration and arms limitation at the second Hague Conference. While receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1910 he spoke of a League of Peace which the great powers could form “not only to keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent, by force if necessary, its being broken by others.” The problem with The Hague approach, he believed, was that it lacked an effective executive police power. Roosevelt stated concisely, “Each nation must keep well prepared to defend itself until the establishment of some form of international police power, competent and willing to prevent violence as between nations. As things are now, such power to command peace throughout the world could best be assured by some combination between those great nations which sincerely desire peace and have no thought of themselves of committing aggressions.” Roosevelt concluded that the statesman who could bring this about would have the gratitude of all mankind.

In the spring of 1914 President Wilson sent his close friend and advisor, Colonel House, to Europe as an unofficial ambassador for peace. House met with German officials and the Kaiser explaining that with the community of interests between England, Germany, and the United States they could together maintain the peace of the world. However, England was concerned about Germany’s growing navy. House went to Paris and then London where he conferred with Edward Grey about negotiating with Germany. Even after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the event which precipitated the war, House returned to Berlin and appealed to the Kaiser through a letter that England, France, and Germany could settle their differences peacefully. Many years later the Kaiser admitted that the mediation offer by Wilson and House had almost prevented the war. However, the German militarists were intent on fighting, and the war broke out with Austria leading the way. President Wilson on August 19 declared that the United States was neutral, and he requested that the American people be impartial. In January 1915 Wilson again sent House to Europe on a peace mission, hoping to get a parley started to discover possible terms and conditions of peace.

In England a League of Nations Society was founded in May 1915, and the idea of a League was supported publicly by Grey and Asquith. In the United States numerous branches of the League to Enforce Peace sprang up around the country. On May 27, 1916 this group, supported by ex-President William H. Taft, heard speeches by President Wilson and the Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. Lodge was wary of forming entangling alliances, about which Washington had warned America, but this he felt should not preclude joining with other civilized nations to diminish war and encourage peace. In fact the Senator stated strongly, “We must find some way in which the united forces of the nations could be put behind the cause of peace and law.” In his speech Wilson also declared, “The nations of the world must in some way band themselves together to see that that right prevails as against any sort of selfish aggression.” Civilization is not yet firmly established until nations are governed by the same code of conduct that we demand of individuals. He outlined three fundamental principles: first, that every people has the right to choose their sovereignty; second, that small nations as well as large ones ought to have the guarantee of territorial integrity; and third, that the world and the rights of its people and nations ought to be protected from disturbing aggression. He proposed that the United States initiate a movement for peace calling for a “universal association of the nations” to maintain security of the above principles with the help of world opinion.

While speaking to West Point graduates that year Wilson contrasted the spirit of militarism to the citizen spirit, and asserted that in the United States the civilian spirit is intended to dominate the military, which is why the President, a civilian authority, is commander-in-chief of all forces. In September Wilson was renominated by the Democratic Party, and in his acceptance speech he discussed world peace. America must contribute to a just and settled peace, because no longer can any nation remain wholly apart from world turmoil. Again he appealed to world opinion to establish joint guarantees for peace and justice in a spirit of friendship. Wilson’s re-election was promoted under the slogan “He kept us out of war,” and he managed to win a narrow victory.

In January 1917 the Germans decided to pursue unrestricted submarine warfare. Wilson was trying to get the western allies and central powers to negotiate peace with each other, and he was not informed of the Germans’ change in policy when he delivered his great “Peace without Victory” speech on January 22. This was the first time a President had appeared alone before the Senate since George Washington vowed never to return there. Wilson expressed his hope that peace could be negotiated soon, and he was convinced that after the war an international concert of power must prevent war. He offered the United States Government in its tradition of upholding liberty to serve in using its authority and power to guarantee peace and justice throughout the world by means of a League for Peace. The President wanted to indicate the conditions upon which the United States could enter into this process. First the war must be ended, and by a treaty of peace that will be universally approved and guaranteed by a universal covenant, which must include the peoples of the New World. The organized force of mankind protecting the peace must be greater than any nation or probable combination of nations. Wilson did not believe that the war should end in a new balance of power but rather in a just and organized common peace, for no one can guarantee the stability of a balance of power. Neither side really intends to crush the other; therefore it must be a peace without victory so that the victor will not impose intolerable sacrifices which result in resentment and probably future hostilities. Equality of nations is the right attitude for a lasting peace as well as a just settlement regarding territory and national allegiance. Equality of nations means a respect for the rights of small nations based upon the common strength of the concert of nations, not upon individual strength. A deeper principle yet is that “governments derive all their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists to hand peoples about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property. That henceforth inviolable security of life, of worship, and of industrial and social development should be guaranteed to all peoples.” Peace can only be stable with justice and freedom; otherwise the spirit rebels. Wilson asserted the importance of freedom of the seas and also the need to limit navies and armies. Wilson felt that he was speaking “for liberals and friends of humanity in every nation . . . for the silent mass of mankind.” He suggested that the American principles of the Monroe Doctrine should be extended throughout the world so that “every people should be left free to determine its own polity, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid.” These principles of self determination, freedom, and protection from aggression “are the principles of mankind and must prevail.”

Wilson struggled to keep America out of the war, but when the Germans announced submarine warfare even against neutral shipping he immediately broke diplomatic relations with Germany. American intelligence reports indicated that Germany was trying to form an alliance with Mexico against the United States. Wilson had considered entry into the war a crime against civilization, and he loathed the implications. Privately he said, “It would mean that we would lose our heads along with the rest and stop weighing right and wrong. It would mean that a majority of people in this hemisphere would go war mad, quit thinking, and devote their energies to destruction.” However, in March several U.S. ships were attacked, and the President decided to propose a declaration of war to the Congress on April 2. He appealed to international law and the freedom of the seas. Because of the loss of noncombatants’ lives he interpreted the German submarine warfare against commerce as a “warfare against mankind.” He did not recommend revenge or the victorious assertion of physical might as motives for action but rather the vindication of human right and a refusal to submit to wrongs. Therefore since the Imperial German Government was at war with the United States, they must accept the belligerent status thrust upon them. Wilson clearly stated his purpose for America’s role, “Our object is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles.” He declared that a new age was beginning in which nations and governments must be held to the same standards of conduct and responsibility as the individual citizens of civilized states. He indicated that America had no animosity toward the German people, and he explained that small groups of ambitious men were using those people as pawns under the veil of the private courts of a privileged class. Wilson believed that peace could only be maintained by a partnership of democratic nations; autocratic governments cannot be trusted. Therefore Americans must fight for the liberation of the world’s people, including the German peoples. “The world must be made safe for democracy.” Peace must be founded on political liberty. President Wilson disavowed any desire for conquest or dominion; America was to be merely one of the champions of mankind’s rights. Wilson’s speech was greeted with wildly enthusiastic applause; later he thought how strange it was to hear applause for a message that meant death for many young men.

The United States was involved in the World War, but it would be six months before many soldiers would be fighting in France. That summer President Wilson appointed an Inquiry of several distinguished experts to gather information on Europe’s oppressed peoples, international business, international law, proposals for a peace-keeping organization, and ideas on repairing the war damage in Belgium and France. Wilson prophetically warned, “What we are seeking is a basis that will be fair to all and which will nowhere plant the seeds of such jealousy and discontent and restraint of development as would certainly breed future wars.”

Utilizing this research by experts Wilson formulated the war aims and peace suggestions of the United States and presented them before Congress on January 8, 1918 as his famous Fourteen Points. He reiterated that the United States was seeking only a peaceful world that is safe for self-governing nations. His specific points may be summarized as follows:

1) “open covenants of peace, openly arrived at” – no secret treaties;

2) free navigation of the seas outside territorial waters;

3) equality of trade and removal of economic barriers;

4) “adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety;”

5) impartial adjustment of all colonial claims weighing equally the interests of the populations with the claims of governments;

6) evacuation of Russian territory and the opportunity for Russians to choose their own institutions, and aid according to their needs and desires;

7) evacuation and restoration of Belgium under her own sovereignty;

8) liberation and restoration of invaded French territory and the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, correcting the wrong of 1871;

9) “a readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality;”

10) the peoples of Austria-Hungary should be freely allowed autonomous development;

11) Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated and restored, and the Balkan states ought to be established along lines of allegiance and nationality with international guarantees of independence and territorial integrity, with access to the sea for Serbia;

12) Turkey itself should have secure sovereignty, but other nationalities should be freed of Turkish rule and be assured of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be open to all ships and commerce under international guarantees;

13) an independent Poland should include territories of Polish populations, have access to the sea and guaranteed territorial integrity; and

14) “a general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.”

The President then declared that the United States was willing to fight for these principles to secure liberty and safety for all peoples under international justice. Germany was to be allowed her fair and equal place among the nations, and Wilson requested negotiation with representatives of the majority of German people rather than the military party and imperialists.

These Fourteen Points were adopted by the Allied statesmen as a basis for the peace. Responses to this speech soon came from representatives of Germany and Austria. These replies by Count von Hertling and Count Czernin were answered by Wilson in a speech on February 11; he was especially critical of the German Chancellor von Hertling. Peace must be established justly in view of world opinion and not involving militarily only the separate states that are most powerful. Wilson also pointed out that there were to be no annexations, no punitive damages, no arbitrary handing of people about by antagonists, but respect for national aspirations and self-determination.

Wilson again summarized the great ideals America was fighting for in a 4th of July speech at Mount Vernon. Over a million American men had already been shipped to France. The four goals he stated were:

1) destruction of every arbitrary power that disturbs the world’s peace;

2) settlement of political and economic questions with the consent of those involved, not according to the material interests of other nations;

3) consent of all nations to live under common law and mutual respect for justice; and

4) establishment of a peace organization of the free nations’ combined power to check violations of peace and justice according to the tribunal of international opinion to which all must submit.