Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles 

What was the Treaty of Versailles? 

The Treaty of Versailles was a document in which Germany was forced to sign to end the war. Germany in the end took all the guilt for the war and was forced to pay debt to the various countries.

However, the actual treaty was a result of the US congress shooting it down once and then once revisions were made, it was brought back into play. 

It was after this that the Soviet Union was being looked upon as a threat.

But what is the accepted historical narrative? Better yet, what is a historical narrative? 

A historical narrative is the story in which we as a society are taught about a particular event. 

Using the above example about the Treaty of Versailles, the accepted historical narrative is that the Treaty of Versailles was a failure in which the outcome lead into World War II.

The criticism of the Treaty was almost immediately after it was signed. People began to criticize it around 1922 and President Woodrow Wilson was depicted as the Good Guy.

The book mentions that on November 11th, 1918, the war had finally ended and that President Wilson was intent on peace of reconciliation rather than peace of hate.

The war had technically ended on November 7th, 1918 but the government waited until November 11th, 1918 to formally end the war and in those four days, more men died.

During class, we discussed psychohistory.  

Psychohistory is getting into the mind of someone and in this case, it'd be the mind of President Woodrow Wilson.

He was the first President with a History degree and he was the son of a minister.  He was brought up on strong right and wrong idealism and he was a southerner.

He was the first sitting President to go overseas and he went overseas for six months to negotiate the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations.

He was kind of egotistical. Instead of sending a representative from the United States, he went instead because he felt like no one else was fit for the job. While he negotiated in Europe, there were millions of troops returning back to the United States.

Those troops were looking for jobs, price controls were removed, restrictions were removed and there were millions of people striking companies.


In Europe, there are negotiations being made.  France wants land and restrictions on Germany's army while Great Britain wants restrictions on Germany's navy and Italy wants money and landed rewarded to them but Italy walks out unable to get what they wanted.

Wilson at first stated that Germany would take no guilt for the war but then Wilson is unable to give Germany what he had promised.

Henry Cabot Lodge (above photo) was Wilson's rival and and he was powerful at the time enough to become chairman of foreign relations committee.

He had no issues with the Treaty of Versailles as long as the United States had no participation in the League of Nations.

To gain support, Wilson went on speaking tours by train and they were very successful in gaining momentum for the Treaty.

Wilson was going to get what he wanted, no matter what anyone else said or did.

However in June of 1919, he suffered his first stroke and returned from his speaking tours to Washington D.C.

Personally, I believe that Wilson was very egotistical. I think he was a man who was very firm in his decisions and in getting what he wanted.  He wasn't going to take no for an answer, despite his ailments, he pushed through until March of 1921.

I do believe that Wilson was a dreamer, that he was far ahead of his time for his ideas. If he had done what he had done today, he wouldn't have been as successful and the Senate would have never allowed to do it.

Never in History before this time did a sitting President leave the country for months at a time, leaving America without it's leader.