Abstract
The First World War marked an important stage in the rise of American power, absolutely and in relation to that of Britain. By the end of the war the United States was acknowledged to be not merely a potential but an actual great power of the first rank. Whereas the European belligerents had expended lives and capital with a prodigality never seen before, United States resources grew and her losses were insignificant. She was able and willing to use her power. But it was not unlimited. Economic and financial resources, important though they were in relations with the belligerents, were not enough to give a neutral United States the position of arbiter in the conflict that President Wilson desired. Military intervention was eventually forced on a reluctant country, and was decisive in the Allied victory. Wilson then aimed to apply American ideals and principles to the peace, and thus to serve American interests as well as those of humanity. He articulated the aspirations of many European as well as American liberals. But the peace, like the war, was that of a coalition, and already before the treaties were signed it was uncertain whether the American people would endorse the role that the President wished to give their country.
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Notes
Military history of the war is not discussed in this chapter. A useful account of the political side is David Stevenson, The First World War and International Politics (Oxford, 1988).
For American neutrality, Ernest R. May, The World War and American Isolation 1914–1917 (Cambridge, MA, 1959);
Patrick Devlin, Too Proud to Fight. Woodrow Wilson’s Neutrality (London, 1974).
For American belligerency: David F. Trask, The United States in the Supreme War Council. American War Aims and Inter-Allied Strategy 1917–1918 (Middletown, CT, 1961);
E.B. Parsons, Wilsonian Diplomacy. Allied-American Rivalries in War and Peace (St Louis, 1978);
David R. Woodward, Trial by Friendship. Anglo-American Relations 1917–1918 (Lexington, 1993);
Arthur Walworth, America’s Moment 1918. American Diplomacy at the End of World War I (New York, 1977). For the peace conference, see note 56.
For example James F. Muirhead, Nation, 15 Oct. 1914; Spectator, 29 Aug., 12 Sep., 31 Oct.
See for example A. Maurice Low, National Review, May 1915; Lindsay Rogers, Contemporary Review, May; Eustace Percy (Foreign Office) to A. Willert (The Times correspondent in Washington), 12 Feb., Yale University, Willert Papers, box 4.
Armin Rappaport, The British Press and Wilsonian Neutrality (Stanford and London, 1951) charts the ups and downs of British press reactions to American events and policy.
For an analysis of American opinion see Arthur S. Link, Wilson (Princeton, 1960–5), III, pp. 6–31; John Milton Cooper, jr., The Vanity of Power. American Isolationism and the First World War 1914–1917 (Westport, CT, 1969).
Mary R. Kihl, ‘A Failure of Ambassadorial Diplomacy’, Journal of American History, LVII (1970–1) pp. 636–53.
For House and his relationship with Wilson see especially Link, Wilson, III–V. The text of House’s diary and correspondence printed in The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Arthur S. Link et al. (Princeton, 1978 ff., hereafter cited as PWW),
is to be preferred to that in Charles Seymour, The Intimate Papers of Colonel House (Boston, 1926–8).
Grey to Spring Rice, 22 Dec. 1914; Spring Rice to Grey, 24 Dec., Grey to Spring Rice, 2 Jan. 1915, PWW, XXXI, pp. 517–20, 522–3. For the whole subject see George W. Egerton, Great Britain and the Creation of the League of Nations (London, 1979).
See J.M. Cooper Jr, ‘The British Response to the House-Grey Memorandum. New Evidence and New Questions’, Journal of American History, LIX (1973) pp. 958–71.
See for example Grey to House, 28 Jun., 28 Aug. 1916, PWW, XXXVII, pp. 412–13; XXXVIII, 38, pp. 89–90; Spring Rice to Grey, 19 May, 14 and 31 Jul. 1916, The Letters and Friendships of Sir Cecil Spring Rice, ed. Stephen Gwynn (London, 1929), II, pp. 331–3, 339, 342–3.
See for example Norman Angell, North American Review, May 1915; American Review of Reviews, Dec.
See Link, Wilson, IV, pp. 48, 50; PWW, XXXVI, pp. 114–21, 173–5: the version of the speech published by Ray Stannard Baker and William E. Dodd, The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson (New York, 1925–7), IV, pp. 106–15 says ‘incomparably the most adequate navy in the world’; Literary Digest, 19 Feb., 11 Mar. 1916; Archibald Hurd, Fortnightly Review, 1 Jun.
See Anne Orde, British Policy and European Reconstruction after the First World War (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 9–11, 13;
Carl P. Parrini, Heir to Empire. United States Economic Diplomacy 1916–1923 (Pittsburgh, 1969), pp. 15–21, 31–7;
Burton K. Kaufman, Efficiency and Expansion. Foreign Trade Organization in the Wilson Administration 1913–1921 (Westport, CT, 1974), pp. 166–70, 172–5.
Memorandum by Keynes, 10 Oct. 1916, J.M. Keynes, Collected Writings, ed. Elizabeth Johnson (London, 1971–83), XVI, pp. 197–8.
For the whole story of Anglo-American financial relations see Kathleen Burk, Britain, America and the Sinews of War 1914–1918 (Boston and London, 1985).
See Stanley J. Kernek, ‘The British Government’s Reaction to President Wilson’s “Peace” Note of December 1916’, Historical Journal, XIII (1970) pp. 721–66. Lloyd George’s speech in the House of Commons in reply to the German note, also aimed partly at American opinion with an evocation of Abraham Lincoln, in HCDeb., 5th ser., vol. 88, cols 1333–8.
A useful general account is David Kennedy, Over Here. The First World War and American Society (New York, 1980).
See also John A. Thompson, Reformers and War. American Progressive Publicists and the First World War (Cambridge, 1987).
See Trask, The United States in the Supreme War Council; Woodward, Trial by Friendship. For Russia see R.H. Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations 1917–1921, I, Intervention and War (Princeton, 1961).
For the episode see David F. Trask, Captains and Cabinets. Anglo-American naval relations, 1917–1918 (Columbia, MO, 1972).
For American shipping and trade see Jeffrey J. Safford, Wilsonian Maritime Diplomacy 1913–1921 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1978); Kaufman, Efficiency and Expansion.
Bayley to Balfour, 13 Jul. 1917, PRO, FO 800/209. Wiseman’s memorandum of his conversation with Wilson is printed in PWW, XLIII, pp. 172–5; Wilton Bonham Fowler, British-American Relations 1917–1918. The Role of Sir William Wiseman (Princeton, 1969), pp. 243–6.
Accounts of the episode in Trask, Captains and Cabinets; V.H. Rothwell, British War Aims and Peace Diplomacy 1914–1918 (Oxford, 1971); Stevenson, First World War and International Politics; correspondence in PWW, LI.
Memorandum by Wiseman, ‘The attitude of the United States and of President Wilson towards the peace conference’, c. 20 Oct. 1918, Fowler, British-American Relations, pp. 290–6.
Imperial War Cabinet, 47, 48, 30 and 31 Dec. 1918, PRO, CAB 23/42. On the colonial settlement see Wm. Roger Louis, Great Britain and Germany’s Lost Colonies 1914–1919 (Oxford, 1967). Members of the War Cabinet were willing to encourage American involvement in German colonial territory or Ottoman territory, in areas where Britain did not have paramount interests.
A useful overview of the problems and the outcome of the peace conference is given by Stevenson, First World War and International Politics, ch. 6. For British preparations see Erik Goldstein, Winning the Peace. British Diplomatic Strategy, Peace Planning, and the Paris Peace Conference (Oxford, 1991).
For Anglo-American relations see Seth P. Tillman, Anglo-American Relations at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 (Princeton, 1961).
See Inga Floto, Colonel House in Paris, 2nd edn (Princeton, 1981);
Arthur Walworth, Wilson and his Peacemakers. American Diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference (New York, 1986).
Hankey diary, 24 Nov. 1918, Stephen Roskill, Hankey, Man of Secrets, II (London, 1972), p. 25; minute by Drummond, 27 Nov.; C.F.Dormer to Drummond, 28 Nov., PRO, FO 800/329.
Hoover to Wilson, 24 Oct. 1918; Hoover to Cotton, 7 Nov., PWW, LI, pp. 437–8, 634–6. See papers by Murray N. Rothbard and Robert H. Van Meter jr. in Herbert Hoover. The Great War and its Aftermath 1914–23, ed. Laurence E. Gelfand (Iowa City, 1979).
For French policy see Marc Trachtenberg, Reparation in World Politics. France and European Economic Diplomacy 1916–1923 (New York, 1980), chs 1–2. For American policy see Parrini, Heir to Empire, chs 1–3. See also Orde, European Reconstruction, ch. 2.
W.M. Hughes to Lloyd George, 18 Dec. 1918, Lloyd George Papers, F/28/2/18. For the origins of British reparation policy see Robert E. Bunselmeyer, The Cost of the War 1914–1919. British Economic War Aims and the Origins of Reparation (Hamden, CT, 1975).
Bruce Kent, The Spoils of War. The Politics, Economics and Diplomacy of Reparations 1918–1932 (Oxford, 1989), pp. 28–40 is a useful short account of the discussions at the peace conference.
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© 1996 Anne Orde
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Orde, A. (1996). Resources and Responsibility: The First World War and the Peace Settlement. In: The Eclipse of Great Britain. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24924-4_3
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