 Welcome to our second six-week series of conversations with noted presidential historians about the American presidency. Brought to you by the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, the UT Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and this year, Humanities Texas. I'm Philip Arms, and it's my privilege to chair the UT Ollie Enrichment Committee. In 2022, we've brought you a series of interviews with presidential biographers, each of whom offer special insights into the lives behind the legends of JFK, Nixon, Tyler Jefferson, and Washington. Dr. Mark Lawrence, the director of the LBJ Library, and our good friend, and himself a widely respected historian was the host for each of these interviews. And Dr. Lawrence will again host each conversation this year, focusing on presidential decisions for war and peace. From these conversations, we will learn just how complex and difficult these decisions were, and perhaps lessons for today. Our audience includes members and guests from the LBJ Library, friends, and from the four UT Ollie organizations, and from Humanities Texas. As a member of the audience, you may participate in the Q&A segment by using the chat function to write us some questions. Our Q&A host today is my UT Ollie colleague and good friend, Sandy Criss. Charlie Letterman, our guest historian, is a senior lecturer in international history at King's College London, and is coming to us today from London. He is taught as a visiting faculty member, also a Stanford and at our own University of Texas. So Charlie Letterman, in a sense, welcome back. Throughout his career, he has worked to apply historical knowledge to contemporary political concerns. He's published widely in journals, newspapers, and books, including his masterful history of the progressive era in America. The book, Sharing the Burden, the Armenian Question, Humanitarian Intervention, and the Anglo-American Visions of Global Order. In this book, he writes brilliantly about decisions for peacemaking during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson at the end of World War One. Wilson himself was a scholar of the administrative state, the president of Preston University, the governor of New Jersey, and the 28th president of the United States. And perhaps importantly, he was also a Presbyterian elder, an idealist who deeply believed in the values embedded in the Protestant ethic that were in our essential to the founding and sustaining of local democracies. As president, his idealism helped shape his foreign policy for good or for ill. Perhaps especially in his unfulfilled intention for the United States to be a part of the League of Nations and to aid the Armenian people, who suffered perhaps one and a half million people killed in a genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire. And Charlie Letterman writes in our quote, sometimes it's simply not possible to achieve a good solution. So it is a great pleasure and anticipation that we welcome you for today's interview, Charlie Letterman, the author of Sharon LeBurden, and now to Mark Lawrence. Well, hello, everyone, and welcome, and welcome especially to Charlie Letterman. Charlie, thank you so much for being with us for this first of six conversations with eminent scholars, as Phil just told us, scholars who've written about decisions for war and peace across American history. It's really fitting, I think, to begin a series on presidential decision making about war and peace with the First World War, a war that was unprecedented in its destruction and certainly in its global consequences. In peacemaking at the end of the war, notably the famous Treaty of Versailles has been a major subject of interest to put it mildly for many, many years, as it still is and as it has been for more than a century now. It's no exaggeration, I think, to say that the World War I settlement has probably been more analyzed and debated than any other peacemaking exercise in all of global history. Charlie, before we dive into Versailles and peacemaking itself, let's talk for a minute about the war itself. You've written, in fact, you say on the very first page of the book that Phil just mentioned, that the First World War was, and I quote here, the foundational crisis of the 20th century. Unpack that for us. What do you mean by that assertion? Well, thank you Mark, and thank you Phil for that introduction. It's a pleasure to be back in Austin, even if only virtually. I'm delighted to be part of this series, which is such a great initiative. As you say, Mark, the First World War is this foundational crisis, and I know that historians tend to have this interconnected sense of events. Where do we go back to in terms of trying to understand the origins of our present moment, and so you can keep sort of unpacking, unpacking, and unpeeling the onion. But I do think there is something foundational about the First World War, because in many senses it marks the end of a period of, at least in Europe, quite remarkable stability in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. And this is not to say that there's not conflict in Europe, and also that there isn't sort of cataclysmic wars beyond Europe's borders. But when we look at the absence of great power conflict on the European continent from 1815 to 1914, a period of 99 years, I think to put that in context, for us, since the Second World War, that period is only 78 years. So that period in the 19th century, the First World War brings to an end, is a prolonged one. And so the way in which it sort of shakes the whole basis of international politics is profound. But it really is, it's a war on a scale that the world had never seen before. And we can go into, I think, some of the first World War represented. But I think one of the things that it is, is the first total war of the 20th century. And as one historian has put it, I think quite aptly, it's the calamity from which other calamities spring. Because not only does it signal the collapse of that European order that I discussed before, that piece, that long piece that for the most part had characterized European politics, but it's also the downfall of four major multinational empires in the Lazarus Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Habsburg Empire and the German Empire. It's really also, aside from sort of the policy, it's the cultural impact of it, the way in which it sort of shakes a way of life, and the way in which it transforms social relations within Europe. But most importantly, of course, is the death and destruction, is the 10 million, almost 10 million who die and the many millions more who suffer permanent disfigurement and disability. So as a transformative moment in international politics and in international history, I think it really does deserve that description of being sort of a foundational moment in the history of the 20th century. One of the things that seems to me that can never be emphasized enough is the sheer destructiveness, as you say, of the First World War. Your book about the Armenian dimension of the war takes us deeply into one terrible episode, a series of episodes, really, from that era. But before we go to that, capture for us, if you would, there's something more of the sheer bloodletting and destruction that occurred during the First World War. Yes, so as you say, it's not just the amount of death, the scale, it's the nature of the deaths that I think is important, because this is the first war that's fought not only on land and sea, but also in the air. So you have 4,800 British civilians, obviously a small number of the total, but they're killed or wounded in air raids and the impact that this has psychologically on a generation, the way in which that transforms the way in which the homefront is brought into this total war. It's the first major use of poison gas on the battlefields. It's the last major war where it's in some senses is the sort of culmination of the Napoleonic eras. So they're still, the French are still sort of have in particular sort of put bayonets on their rifles, but what we're seeing is sort of a move towards a more mechanized warfare, that this doesn't really survive the sort of the old style of warfare, doesn't survive burst contact really with the battlefield, that you have guns and machine guns and artillery, you also have the use of tanks. And really it's the the the scale of destruction has just not been possible in previous conflicts in Europe at least. I mean, in many senses the American Civil War serves as more of a precursor than I think that we'd seen in Europe, whether in terms of aspects of trench warfare, but the way in which societies are mobilized to fight these total wars. But if you look at the Battle of the Somme on July the 1st, 1916, that the bloodiest day of that battle, the British army suffers more than 57,000 casualties. And I think sometimes that you just have to hear those numbers to realize just the scale of destruction. And you also see the way in which societies are transformed with conscription, certainly in Britain, which hadn't had it before in other parts of Europe, you do have, but also the way in which women are brought into armies and into jobs which they hadn't played a part in before because so many men are being sent to the front lines. So this really is a this is a war that which which grips the whole of society. In terms of international affairs, the First World War was undoubtedly really transformative in many of the ways that you've already mentioned. I think you emphasized the destruction of these multinational empires as a consequence of the war. Talk if you would though about perhaps the the sort of flip side of that phenomenon, the rise of two new powers, the United States on the one hand and Russia on the other, perhaps in a somewhat delayed fashion, given the chaos that ensued immediately after the First World War. But would it be appropriate to think of one of the significances of the First World War is propelling these two new massive land power, massive continent spanning spanning powers to international dominance? Yeah, I think very much so and I think AJP Taylor, the the Great British historian of international relations, finishes his one of his classic books on the struggle for mastery in Europe in 1917, 1918, because he says that the the battle for mastery in Europe which had been fought by intra-European powers is essentially settled by the fact that the future of Europe will now be decided from without both with the Soviet Union as an extra European power but also very much the United States and so 1917 in particular is this pivotal year for this. I think one of the things that I think is important to remember though is that I think that that can sometimes be the case when we look back but actually at the time the British Empire in particular I think emerges from the war relatively much more powerful than any of its competitors. The expanse of its empire really reaches its zenith after the First World War and even though its economic power had been shifting to the United States and I think 1916 sort of that marks the sort of US surpassing Britain as as sort of undeniably the greatest industrial power and the greatest financial power in the world. Britain is still a pivotal nation in almost every single major diplomatic struggle and so it emerges from the war more powerful relatively than say the Germans, the French but I think what's important about it is that this is very much relative and it's partly because the United States and as I know we'll get on to this later withdraws from a major role in international affairs. I think it really is even if it might have seemed on the surface that Britain remained the world's dominant power after the First World War I think it's very much I think in reality the eclipse of this sort of Pax Britannica dominated international politics in the 19th century and really is as you say the moment where Russia moves towards its as an ideological transformation with the Bolshevik Revolution but in particular it's when the United States really announces itself as the world's dominant power and it's really I would say the beginning of what would come to be known as the American Century. And of course the pattern of American decision making that plays out during the war is it is really fascinating right at first the United States under Woodrow Wilson's leadership stays neutral and this might be what we would expect given broader patterns of the ways in which the United States had engaged in the wider world the thing that really needs explanation is why in 1917 the United States did something it really had never done before and intervened in a major great power war here's a question that could keep us busy no doubt all day but give us a brief explanation as you see it for why it was how you explain that about face from neutrality in 1914 to intervention in 1917. No that's that I mean it's a fascinating question and it's one that I think shapes so much of what comes afterwards as well because I think it's it's difficult for us to be able to sort of recall this as a memory in terms of the history at the time but the way in which people say in the 1930s looked at American entrance into the First World War might be the way to which a subsequent generation looked at American entrance and to say the Iraq war where they thought that this was if we look at sort of public opinion in the 1930s there was a sense to which this had been something which had been seen as a mistake and had been something which had occurred as a result of sort of a misdirection in US history and I think as a result as you say it becomes an area of real controversy so for many the sense is that this was economically motivated whether it's economically because America would benefit from from from entrance into the war but I think particularly because of there's a sense to which shadowy interests had played a role in tying America's economic future to the conflict in Europe and I think in particular the sense is that sort of East Coast bankers JP Morgan Jr and the way in which these banking houses funded the British and the French war effort was seen as the sort of the catalyst and we see this right from the beginning of the war where Wilson Secretary of State William James Bryan is very opposed to loans by the United States to the belligerents. Bryan says that loans are and money is the worst form of contraband and that this will ultimately bring the United States into the conflict so there's there's huge controversy over this and ultimately the decision is taken particularly because the US is is in recession in the early years of the war and is pulled out of that recession by a lot of these one of these war orders and also just by the nature of international law at the time to to have refused to trade with either nation would have been seen in some senses as an unneutral act so there's a sense to which for critics that is the sort of justification I think that stands up less to actually historical analysis when you look at the motivations that underpin Wilson's decisions and I don't think that really is the driver of American entrance into the First World War in the same way that I think for those who after the Second World War would say well we got him because the balance of power was was going to be sort of turned against our interest that this was about our national security in a sort of a narrow since we saw the Germans as a threat we saw their dominance of Europe as a threat again I don't actually see that as playing a major role for President Wilson there might be some of his advisors who saw that but Wilson himself is never really susceptible to these ideas of economic or security interests I think for Wilson there's something quite different going on and I think to understand why the US enters into the war we have to go into the mind of this extremely complex figure who underpins American foreign policy and we need to understand what his motivations are rather than projecting back things that sort of subsequent generations saw as the reasons for American entrance into the war fantastic Charlie so recently you published this this terrific book and congratulations by the way sharing the burden the Armenian question humanitarian intervention and Anglo-American visions of global order the book has a lot to say about the growing importance of this sense of mission and purpose in global affairs during the first couple of decades of the 20th century something that that played a crucial role as you've just suggested in the American decision to enter the war as well as its position in the peace negotiations that that would follow how do you account for the rising American commitment that that was so important for Wilson but of course predated him to some extent the rising American commitment to bringing its idealism and its ideological purposes to bear in international affairs yes because I think we see a real sea change that occurs at the the end of the the 19th beginning of the 20th century and I don't necessarily buy the idea that Americans are disinterested in global affairs in the 19th century that this is an era of of complete isolation there's very much a great deal of interest by Americans in affairs beyond their borders and particularly with events in in in Asia in the Americas and increasingly in Europe as well and their support and sympathy for say minority groups or nations who are sort of looking to secure their independence the the Greek cause in the Ottoman Empire in the 1820s is sort of a good example or the treatment of Russian Jews in in czarist Russia that these are areas that become of concern to Americans but in the 19th century the sense is that this is not the appropriate area for the American government to intervene that if there's going to be supported be philanthropic it will be done by private relief initiatives and what changes at the end of the 19th century is that as the United States emerges as a greater power that as it builds up its navy and that it starts to to sort of develop the instruments of power a growing sense of international consciousness expands and there's a sense a sense of a sense that America's power brings with it a certain sense of responsibility but also a sense of opportunity to shape the world outside its borders in its own interests and also not just in its interest but to shape a world that would reflect its values as well and I think you start to see that and part of the reason why sharing the Bergen's focus is on the issue of of of the Armenians is a particularly important issue is that you start to see this in the mid 1890s with the first massacres first large scale massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire when Americans become very much animated by what occurs there 100 000 Armenians are killed in the Ottoman Empire and there's a there's a great deal of interest because of the American missionary presence in the Ottoman Empire then it becomes a sense that when the Europeans fail to intervene on behalf of the Armenians that the United States looks to what's going on in the Ottoman Empire and increasingly says well the Europeans have sort of failed in their more responsibility and we are going to intervene in Cuba which is essentially our Armenia what's occurring in in the Spanish imperial possession of Cuba is is akin to what's occurring in the Ottoman Empire whether that's fair or not but as a metaphor it becomes very important and what we see at the turn of the 20th century is a growing sense that America can start to use its power to to right wrongs in the world and we see that in relation to the Armenians where there's a big debate about this it doesn't lead to any action but it leaves to a growing consciousness it leaves to military intervention on behalf of the Cubans not the only reason of course but there is an important humanitarian underpinnings of this there's diplomatic interventions on behalf of Russian Jews and so there's a growing sort of sense of consciousness but at the same time there's also a sense which American presidents recognize that America's interests don't extend that far and that the American public will not support these interventions and that even America's imperial expansion into the Philippines Americans grow disinterested in that quite quickly so there's this sort of there's this burst of enthusiasm for a greater global role that then dissipates in the early 20th century and what we see when we get to 1914 is that you have you have leaders who like Theodore Roosevelt and then ultimately Woodrow Wilson who believe that the US should take on a larger global role but at the same time a recognition that the public may not support it so what's important is is an understanding of these sort of ideological underpinnings and the way in which the first war comes as the United States is starting to awaken to responsibilities in the world so take us inside Woodrow Wilson's head how under now the conditions of of war which present some opportunities for the United States to exert its power how does he think about American war aims once the United States is embroiled in the war how does his thinking evolve with respect to the kind of peace that the United States was seeking through its belligerency yes so I think Wilson is as I say he's he's not an easy figure to to completely understand him he when going through his writings he is someone who uses very high-minded idealistic phrases but is a much more practical politician than I think sometimes he's given credit for he's always seen as the sort of the high-minded idealist I think probably because he was a university professor that he's sort of as as Phil mentioned his religious background I think is very very important to him and I think it's critical to understand him but I think he is much more pragmatic and we see that right from the beginning of the war his decision to say that the United States should remain neutral in thought as well as in action is dictated by practical political considerations that ultimately there's ethnic societal questions within the United States that it draws its population from many of the belligerents who have sympathies for for each side whether it's German-Americans or their sympathy towards the towards Germans or whether it's Irish-Americans whose sympathies are against the British and I think these these are important considerations Jewish-Americans who are opposed to Tsarist Russia and what Wilson is trying to manage this but he also recognizes what I just mentioned before that Americans are not necessarily interested in getting involved in in a war overseas that there's no question in 1914 that the United States would intervene in the conflict in the years previously particularly under Theodore Roosevelt had had sort of played sort of a very limited role in helping to sort of mediate disputes within Europe but there's no real sense to which America's core interests are caught up in the war and there's a sense to which Wilson wants to focus on domestic affairs and also he's not particularly interested in foreign affairs and the great quote which which Wilson makes on the way to his inauguration in 1912 is that it would be the irony of fate if my foreign policy if my if my presidency was to deal mainly with foreign policy because all my training has been in domestic affairs and obviously that irony of fate sits very um sits very heavy when the US enters the first world war but I think that quotation actually can sometimes mislead because Wilson developed some quite clear ideas about America's foreign policy about its role in the world which had had occurred and in some senses were actually more definite than his views on domestic politics and they essentially amount to this belief that the United States has a certain responsibility to provide a certain leadership towards the establishment of a more democratic world that um that essentially as he says in his his election campaign in 1912 the United States is chosen and prominently chosen to show the ways to the nations of the world how to walk in the path of liberty and that really does reflect um an important part of Wilson's worldview that he believes that the US has this leadership role and prior to American entrance into the war there's a sense to which it will provide that leadership to peaceful means that it will bring the the nations together um that it will help to mediate this dispute and this will be a means towards the United States playing a more active role in world affairs and he's trying to keep the United States out um you get um uh the thinking of the Lusitania famously in 1915 which is sort of thinking the Lusitania is almost a bit like September the 11th or Jennifer John F. Kennedy's assassination where everyone who was alive at the time would be able to tell you where they were when that event occurred and it's not because that inevitably was going to bring the United States into the first world war it's more that it made the entrance in the United States into the water possibility in a way that it hadn't existed before and Wilson quite quite sort of um cleverly politically having made a sort of a rhetorical misstep at the beginning he he says that there's such a thing as a man being too proud to fight of a nation being so right that it doesn't have to prove itself by fighting that causes huge outrage particularly for those who believe in intervention like Theodore Roosevelt but after that Wilson is is is um is quite um savvy in the way in which he gets the Germans to commit to um to no longer engaging in unrestricted submarine warfare and what Wilson does is that he positions himself between the more aggressive belligerent interventionists like Theodore Roosevelt and those who are fundamentally opposed to entrance into the war like his Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan who resigns over Wilson's handling of the Lusitania dispute so Wilson sort of judges American public opinion well and I think that's the thing which we see throughout the war years is that Wilson is very much in step with American public opinion he doesn't want to get too far ahead of it and I think that's something which we should bear in mind because our memories of him are very much dictated by what happens afterwards of him being an idealist who ultimately loses the support of the American public for most of the time during the war years he is very effective at keeping um in line with American public opinion but I think what what occurs out of the Lusitania dispute is a sense to which he is no longer in control of America's destiny if Germany decides at any point to resume unrestricted submarine warfare then that will fundamentally change the picture that that and we can talk about what occurs once Germany does that at the beginning of 1917 because obviously Wilson wins re-election as the man who keeps America out of war in 1916 by a very narrow margin against the republican Charles Evans Hughes but he knows in that campaign that he's not really in control of things and when Jeremy does decide to resume unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917 it presents him with this huge dilemma. Charlie you mentioned the democratization of international affairs is one of those core ideas that sat at the center of Wilson's thinking another term that of course springs to mind quickly with respect to Wilson's self-determination talk a little bit about self-determination I think this connects the subject of Wilsonianism generally to the subject of your book so perhaps you could tell us something about how Wilson's thinking about self-determination what the world should look like after the conclusion of the fighting you know would look like in the part of the world that most interests you. Yeah I mean it's fascinating how much Wilson becomes associated with self-determination because it's not actually an expression that he uses in the 14 points even though we tend to think of Wilson as the as the sort of the advocate of self-determination and Wilson has a slightly different idea about it I mean in many senses he uses as I say this very sort of highfalutin rhetoric idealist rhetoric but in relation to self-determination he has a slightly different idea to that which is ultimately attributed to him he's not necessarily a believer that every people should have their own nation he is and it goes back to this belief that anyone can be sort of trained in the in to be self-governing and I think that's what we see right that his sense of self-determination is that people can be taught to to basically govern themselves and I think that that distinction becomes important for why he doesn't sort of as sort of wholeheartedly reject the imperial world model as I think many of his supporters at the time believe that he's going to and I think we see that and you were mentioning in relation to the Ottoman Empire, Wilson when the U.S. enters the war in 1917 he is German it does so I think the main reason I would say that the U.S. does that is because Wilson cannot see a possibility and he tries very hard after January 1917 when when when Germany declares unrestricted Samoa warfare he doesn't immediately move towards a request for a declaration of war he tries almost everything in that two or three months off afterwards to keep the U.S. still out of the conflict even the Zimmerman Telegram even though that that leads to this huge outpouring of aggression against Germany when the German foreign minister is the telegram which he sends to the Mexican government about reclaiming Texas and other areas that had been lost in them to the United States previously and it causes a huge controversy when this is revealed by British intelligence and arouses sort of interventionist opinion even among those who've been quite isolationist in the Midwest in particular Wilson is still hesitating on this he's still trying to keep the U.S. out of the war and what occurs in March and April 1917 is that Americans are killed on the high seas but shot by German submarines and Wilson sees no course compatible with American honor to keep the U.S. out of war that it's not possible to have what he called for peace with honor. America can't remain can't keep honor if it allows its citizens to be killed that becomes the sort of the deciding force for Wilson but as I say he brings the U.S. into the war against Germany he doesn't bring the U.S. into war initially against Austria-Hungary he changes that in December of 1917 but he never brings the U.S. into the war against the Ottoman Empire one of Germany's other allies which I think is often forgotten and he doesn't he's much more circumspect in terms of one intervening outside of of these other he sees Germany very much as the main antagonist he's very much aware that American public opinion might not support a widening of the war but he also doesn't call for the dismantlement of these multi-ethnic empires because he doesn't think that that's necessarily in the U.S. interest he sees them as vassals of Germany and wants to detach them so even though as we say he's seen as the prophet of self-determination he in the 14 points he's not actually calling for the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire which is which is remarkable for the way in which we remember him afterwards he he's actually looking at ways that sort of autonomy can be given to into nations within the Ottoman Empire within the Austro-Hungarian Empire but not necessarily the breakup of that empire so his conception of self-determination is much more limited at least during the war years it expands afterwards. Charlie it seems to me one of the principles that Wilson indisputably talked about during the war and then of course it becomes central to his peace agenda after the war was the League of Nations right this new collective security instrument that he believed would be a cornerstone of preventing more more great power wars and preserving peace into the indefinite future clearly this was part of the the agenda that he took with him as he set off for Europe once the once the fighting was over we can now see with the benefit of hindsight that though Wilson was very popular Wilsonian ideas were very popular among European opinion there were nevertheless some problems there were problems with the attitude of the attitudes of the other great powers that would come to Versailles instead across the conference table and of course there were problems ultimately on the American home front so let's let's talk a little bit about each one of those first of all with the other great powers what were the obstacles that Wilson had to contend with and how did he do in defending his position against the the the other major voices at the conference? Yes as you say he when when the United States enters the war a concert of free nations is sort of put into the American Declaration of War right from April 1917 Wilson is very much committed to to the League he's not the first American statesman to start talking about the idea of a League of Nations people on the Republican side like Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge had started talking about it previously but Wilson really comes to own that idea as the war goes on and his his sense of of what he wants to achieve is as you say quite different to what the British and French are trying to achieve and I don't necessarily buy the the sort of traditional idea of sort of Lloyd George and Clémenceau as being the sort of the figures of reaction I think they have their own visions of of slightly different I mean they're not they're not looking back to the 19th century I mean even if they're trying to learn lessons from it they have a sense of a different sort of world that they want to emerge out of the war but it's a very different one to what Woodrow Wilson is advocating so for Lloyd George and the British there's a sense of the British emerging from this war more consolidated and more sort of a greater Britain where the British Empire is sort of moving towards its idea of a common world and for Lloyd George there's a recognition that he wants to tie the United States much more closely into international affairs through an Anglo-American alliance that's sort of the great goal and in some senses Clémenceau wants something similar for the French he wants a security guarantee by the British and Americans for France which again is very different to what the French have been doing in the 19th century there's a recognition that France can't stand alone against Germany so they want internationalism but they want a different sort of internationalism it's one that would also protect their empires and for Wilson his sense of this is as I say ties into this idea of American leadership but of a more democratic global order and I don't mean democratic in the sense that it's going to be sort of a universalist sort of end to empire but there's a sense to which imperial competition between the great powers has led to this war and he wants to see no expansion really of these empires that would lead to competition between them he's not opposed to empire per se he's opposed to imperial competition between the European powers that he believes had led to the war in the first place and so that becomes a major clash at the peace conference as the the British and the French are trying to grand eyes get to get benefits that come out of the war which they believe they're entitled to not just the British and the French but the Italians the Japanese and many others as well the United States has less of a desire for possessions for expanding and establishing a sort of a colonial empire and that becomes sort of the basis of many of these disagreements and Wilson really puts the League of Nations as as the sort of the embodiment of his new vision of an international order and that that will help to to really to correct any of the problems that emerge out of the war that aren't settled immediately by the peace and that the United States has to take on the leadership of that new League of Nations that it's that's it's that's its destiny in the world ultimately of course it would be the American home front in particular that would decide the fate of the league and we all know Woodrow Wilson's vision of collective security and Wilsonianism in many ways more broadly came to a crashing end with the defeat of of the league Wilson has sometimes been criticized for being too obstinate being too unwilling to compromise where do you stand on that could can Wilson reasonably be criticized for a kind of obstinacy that ultimately led to failure where there might have been possibilities of a different outcome I think our image of Wilson is very much tied up with the idea that comes when he comes to Europe in at the end of 1918 where he's greeted by this remarkable outpouring of emotion and and celebration millions of people lining the streets in Paris and Rome and London and and there's a sense to which Wilson is this always messianic figure that he sort of I think HD world talks about him standing alone for mankind the sense to which he has occupied this this this remarkable role and and John Maynard Keynes the British economist talks about him as he said Keynes has his wonderful phrase where he says never has a philosopher held so many weapons wherewith to bind the princes of the world and there's a sense to which we look at Wilson at that point he seems all powerful he seems in this position that he's able to shape the world as he wants to I think what's important to remember are the constraints on him he is obviously having to negotiate with with the Europeans particularly when Americans want to bring their troops back there's a sense to which Wilson is actually has far fewer weapons than it might initially seem both militarily but also economically I mean the American might be this major economic power but the loans which it has put out to the allies most Americans and certainly most American politicians in congress believe that those loans are things which have to be collected on there's not things where Wilson is able to sort of forgive loans in response in order to achieve his objectives I mean he he is having to work with congress and he's having to work with with with other leaders and there's I think sometimes a sense to which everything can be controlled by Paris but events are occurring in Europe which things are moving pieces are moving on the chess board which the players can't always control I think within the United States as well there's a growing sort of I think a sense to which the sort of the idealism that I think is there at different points in the war is starting to dissipate there's a sense to which America is going to be manipulated into underwriting a piece that will not be in its interests and increasingly there's not there's what we see sort of an opposition to Wilson from the sort of more irreconcilable isolationist senators but there's also a critique of him from those on the republican side who have a different vision they're internationalist they have a very different vision to Wilson and I think it's the it ultimately becomes the alliance between those figures that essentially brings him down I think I think he he he is certainly too stubborn in terms of compromising and I would say particularly domestically I think for those republican internationalists like Henry Cabot Lodge and Eli High Root and Charles Evans Hughes William Howard Taft they are open to American entrance into a league but they don't want one which has such all-encompassing commitments as Wilson wants and they want much more specific more narrow commitments so I think there is a very valid critique that Wilson is too stubborn on the flip side I think there is a sense to which the debate over the league pushes people to very hard-line positions and it's not entirely clear within that debate that if Wilson had made more concessions that he necessarily would have been able to bring the US in as a leader of global affairs which is what he wanted so there becomes this sort of incompatibility between his vision and the other internationalists so yes he's too stubborn and he's unwilling to compromise but I think he I think this is something which is I think baked into his vision from the from the outset that America has to take on the leadership of the world or it or or there's no point which I think is it's quite an inflexible position. Charlie it seems to me a lot of historians have pointed to the irony that Wilson failed in many ways at the end of his presidency to achieve much of this grand international vision and yet over the long term many historians would say his ideas prevailed we have lived for many years many decades in a Wilsonian era how do you think about that that contention what is Wilson's legacy in in our own era in the 21st century? I think it's a very it's a challenging question today I think because of Wilson's domestic views on race I think the we very much the sense of him the image of him is sort of the great idealist has started to be eroded in that sense because of his of the fact that sort of segregationist policies are put in place during his administration and and many of his views on race are quite aggressive and we see that with his his famous quote about birth of a nation after it's viewed in the in the White House that this is like history written with lightning the quotation that's attributed to him I think as a result Wilson's views have have seen him lose some of the sheen that he had for for quite a long time in the 20th century as this sort of great um advocate of of idealism I do think in relation to foreign policy in particular there are aspects of Wilson's ideas which because of the all-encompassing universalist nature of his rhetoric that actually were able to be picked up by people that he didn't necessarily intend them to and the the Wilsonian moment of 1919 is very real people around the world are inspired by his ideas of self-determination and there is this long-lasting vision of internationalism and interconnection that people are inspired by and and I think we see him his his vision as we've just said being sort of quite decisively defeated and rejected in in 1919 that he is unable to bring the US into the league as as a leader in global affairs but I think one of the things I think sort of demonstrates the importance of it when the US emerges out of isolation in the 1930s to take on this leading role in in in fighting against the the the revisionist powers in Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and Mussolini's Italy it does so to a certain extent under the banner of the same ideals that Wilson had been expressing during during the First World War and its aftermath and I think that that's partly why even sort of such a great bow of of Wilson Wilson's ideas is Henry Kissinger the great realist to Wilson's sort of idealist Kissinger says that Wilson's intellectual victory is greater than any political victory could ever have been because his ideas become the bedrock of American foreign policy ever since so I think there is a sense there but I also think we that he he's certainly he's certainly elements of him are redeemed in in during the Second World War and its aftermath but I think it's almost a combination of the vision that Wilson represents and the vision that his great antagonist Theodore Roosevelt represents and that I think there's it's it's no it's no coincidence that it's Franklin Delano Roosevelt who serves as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Wilson and is is obviously a relative of Theodore Roosevelt who combines their two visions in the most coherent concerted way and I think in many senses it's it's the way in which he is able to bring both aspects of them together that becomes the underpinnings of American foreign policy in the Second World War and its aftermath. I want to remind all of the folks listening to this conversation that there's an opportunity to enter questions into the Q&A feature so by all means please put your questions there and I'll turn it over to Sandy Kress for the Q&A in just a moment but Charlie I can't I can't let you go without calling attention to the fact that not only have you published Sharing the Burden but also a book that you've co-authored with Brendan Simms called Hitler's American Gamble and you are Charlie an expert not just in the First World War and Wilsonianism but really in the interwar period let me ask you to connect these two books in a sense you know it's often claimed that the Second World War flowed from the flaws of the peace settlement of the First World War there's kind of a direct connection between the these two things I wonder what your response is to to that sort of claim given that you've really worked at both ends of that time period? I think for a long time there was there was a great deal of criticism as you say of the peacemakers in Paris their their inability to construct a world that would prevent the war that would that in the the famous phrase of Marshal Foch the the French military leader that they that they had only been able to put in place a 20-year armistice that they aren't able to achieve the nirvana of a of a sort of a more permanent peace in Paris I'm I find myself more sympathetic to the ideas that they were that they the agency was much more limited than we tend to that sort of orthodox interpretation that criticizes and tends to tends to impose there I think Margaret McMillan who's who's wonderful book Paris 1919 has this great phrase talking about this sort of clash between leaders in in Paris and and who are drawing lines on maps and then there's armies moving in Europe that they are very that it's very difficult for for these for these leaders to actually constrain what's going on elsewhere in Europe and I think the sense to which I think most of the scholarship now shows that the First World War in many senses doesn't end in 1918-1919 it continues in many parts of of central and eastern Europe well into the early 1920s only probably up to 1923 I think a greater war occurs which the great war is part of and I think there's a war weariness in in Europe and the United States and I think as a result the leaders are are less able to constrain revisions to the to the treaty that they can come up with certain settlements but they don't necessarily survive first contact with with events on the ground and I think we see this in relation to central Europe for a long time there's criticism as I say of Wilson's ideas on self-determination in relation to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and it leaves this vacuum in central Europe well I think it's very hard for the peacemakers to keep in place the Austro-Hungarian Empire do they make mistakes legions of them they make they make all manner of mistakes at that time but I do think that they wouldn't have been able to keep the Austro-Hungarian Empire there was always going to be a certain vacuum and I think once self-determination is applied to a certain extent Germany is going to emerge out of this era as still the most powerful country in Europe and so I I certainly think they deserve to be criticized for their mistakes but I don't think that they could I don't think I think I think that they could they would have found it very difficult to constrain some of the sort of larger structural forces in international politics that lead to the rise of Germany that lead to the United States not necessarily be willing to take on political commitments I think the US is quite averse to commitments after the First World War and they're certainly averse to Wilson's sort of very overarching vision but it's not clear that they would have taken on even the more narrow commitments of a security guarantee for France for example that sort of goes by the wayside in 1919 so yes they make mistakes the the peacemakers but I think rising Germany a more a more restrained United States a Soviet Union that is in in sort of is in an antagonistic relationship with with the West those things I think are almost certainly going to be baked into the international system after the First World War so they could have mitigated them I don't think they could have prevented many of the problems in the international system well Charlie later minute I'm sure we could keep talking all afternoon or all night in your case thank you very sincerely for spending time with us this afternoon for us and throughout the the late night for you but I don't I don't want to let you go without saying again congratulations on these two really tremendous books sharing the burden and Hitler's American gamble charlie thanks again thank you mark it's been a pleasure and now ladies and gentlemen let me turn the floor over to sandy cress who will moderate the q&a session thank you mark charlie good to be with you I want to start with a question that mixes me putting on you on the spot sort of in a real politic sense with a question that was posed in the in the q&a as well so we're in Versailles and as I understand it and as the question understands it Wilson had a concern about the demand for excessive German reparations in exchange but but was all but was also obviously deeply committed to getting the major powers to back the 14 points the understanding is that he went that he thought harder for the latter and sort of gave in on the former right first of all is that true and if it is would in the interest of peace in the world would we have been better off if he had pushed for the former and not for the latter I mean that perhaps had he stressed the importance of not demanding these excessive reparations would that have had a a felicitous effect on Germany and perhaps had some effect in avoiding the economic collapse and the extremism that followed yeah I think it's a really good question I think what's interesting with Wilson I mean obviously we can't talk about this without talking about the state of his health as well and the way in which I think he certainly becomes more rigid and inflexible as I mentioned previously I think one of the things that's remarkable about Wilson during the war years and beforehand is how adept he is as a politician in measuring American public opinion and changing his policies to reflect that and I think during the peace conference in the aftermath he becomes much more hardline much more inflexible in pursuit of a of a vision that he that he clearly believes of American leadership of the global order and I think the league is sort of is part of that but he becomes much more hardline in the tactics for pursuing that and I think his position on the reparations is interesting he's very much a critic of it in the early part of the of the conference but by the end of the conference when John Maynard Keynes and others are trying to get him to roll back on that and to try and get him to speak to the French on this Wilson actually just he's very clear that he thinks that the Germans have been responsible for the war and need to be punished and partly I think this is because as I say he becomes more hardline during the conference as a result of his illness but also I think he believes that he's been able to establish a position that is going to get support at home because I think it's important to remember Wilson loses the congressional elections in 1918 the Democrats lose the election when Wilson goes to the American people and says to return and the democratic congress has a validation of his vision and it's rejected and the vision that the American public are supporting is more Theodore Roosevelt's vision at the time which says we shouldn't be making peace to the chatter of typewriters but to the hammer of guns and there's a sense to which the American public are moving away from Wilson's vision to Roosevelt's tougher vision and so in some senses Wilson thinks well if we're tough on the Germans in terms of reparations then that will ultimately bring them around to support for the treaty and for membership of the League of Nations and I think he he's not wrong in the sense to which the American public have become more strict on this they do believe the Germans need to be punished but I think he's wrong to believe that this is going to lead to the US taking on these commitments because I think by any measurements by 1919 most Americans are not willing to take on the sort of commitments that he believes they should do. Thank you for addressing his health that was another part of the question whether his declining health in Paris contributed to the way he operated there. Let me take you deeper into a question Mark asked you about the politics and I'm curious again this may relate to his health it may relate to a variety of other factors but I was intrigued by your discussion about the diversity of feeling among Republicans and I'm just wondering and again whether it would have been in his interest to have brought some in to the negotiation of the treaty. My understanding is he brought no Republican in on the negotiating of the treaty had he do you think he could have had more success politically? I think so he does bring in a couple of Republicans into his confidence so Henry White a former diplomat who had been close to Theodore Roosevelt to Henry Cabot Lodge to either high route the sort of big figures in the Republican Party. White is a member of the delegation but as you say he's not a he's not a leading figure and I think that is a huge mistake and people like Colonel House are pushing for him to bring either high routes who'd been a Secretary of State, Secretary of War and Nobel Prize winner to bring him into the tent and I think this is a this is a major mistake that Wilson makes and I think those who are sort of partisan to Wilson would say where their vision of the world is so different to Wilson that it would have been a mistake but I think this is something which frankly Roosevelt really looks to address in the Second World War and with the sort of establishment of of Bretton Woods and the United Nations and bringing the Republicans on board so I think that is definitely the case and I think one of the other things I think what's really interesting within this the clash between Roosevelt and Wilson is fundamental to this and I think for during the war and there's been a long sort of this image that Wilson is the sort of idealist and Roosevelt's the realist and I think John Milton Cooper who wrote an excellent book called The Warrior and the Priest that people may be interested in what he showed and I think very sort of adeptly is that in many senses Roosevelt is actually far more idealistic certainly during the war than Wilson is and his frustration and many of the Republicans frustrations with Wilson is that he their sense is that he uses idealistic language without any sense of believing in these things so as I say people like Roosevelt and Lodge believe us that the US should have gone to war against the Ottoman Empire on behalf of the Armenians. Wilson is opposed to this he believes that actually the US is engaged in a war with Germany it's a much more sort of narrow conflict and so in that sense Wilson is actually quite practical and it's Roosevelt who's the more sort of crusading figure so I think there's that clash between the two but I do think more attention really does need to be paid to sort of the conservative internationalist the republican internationalist who have a very different vision of international affairs that I think is one that there may have been more support for while at the same time I think it's something that the fact is that yes he could have brought these people on board but the nature of the league might become so fractious that by the end of 1919 and by 1920 I think it's too late and I think you see that even after the when Warren Harding comes in and brings in a number of these figures like Charles Evans Hughes like Herbert Hoover who had been sympathetic towards membership of the league but obviously they don't move to membership of the league in the 1920s because they know the American public just would not support it so I think public opinion had shifted as and I think it's not static so he certainly should have done more at the beginning but the nature of the league quite just pushes and sort of compromise out the window it becomes much more black and white thank you Charlie thank you for bringing up the issue of the Armenian problem we had several questions along those lines you brought up Colonel House I want you to spend just a minute or two I want to try to get a couple more questions in but can you talk a moment about President Wilson's relationship with Colonel House and I'm interested as you talk about it why he didn't listen to him in terms of negotiating partners at the end on on the league but Colonel House and President Wilson yeah House is a fascinating figure I mean he really is the sort of the the sort of one of these early sort of foreign policy advisors and he I think is sort of seen by the British in particular as sort of the I'm trying to think which which British politician describes him as sort of the sort of the human intercessor to to Wilson as this sort of like ethereal figure and I think that's I mean it's House who's liaising with people like the British Foreign Secretary Edward Gray and who I think is is much more attuned to European opinion I mean Wilson I think has a certain image of European opinion that comes from his connection with the more sort of liberal figures but I think House is closer to to to the to the policymaking leaders within within Europe but and as I say I'm going to mention at the beginning I think House is more sympathetic to that idea the US should have intervened in in the war earlier on the basis that the balance of power was going against Britain and that a German dominated Europe was not in America's interest but Wilson doesn't really listen to him on this and I think that's that's important to remember because we see that also during the peace conference as well House is important as a guide and as an advisor but on the big issues Wilson knows his own mind and House is important as a sort of as an agent as an interlocutor but when House starts to sort of step outside of that role at Versailles he's Wilson believes I think possibly unfairly that House has sort of gone beyond what his instructions are and as a result that falling out occurs in Paris and I think part of the problem that Wilson has in the later stages of discussions with the Republicans and in relation to the to the treaty is that he doesn't have any sort of sage political advice around him he sort of jettisoned House and others but there's no I mean he doesn't listen to him at the peace conference there's no indication he would have listened to him at that point either so House is important and interesting but he's not decisive in shaping Wilson's views. Gotcha one last question it relates to religion Wilson was a Presbyterian elder president previously president of Princeton with with its preeminent seminary and president going all the way back do you believe that Presbyterian theology do you have any sense that Presbyterian theology affected Wilson's policies particularly his foreign powers? I think more so than I think it I think I think there is definitely a sense to which to which Wilson his views of the world are influenced by religion I think you see that in relation to the Ottoman Empire the people that he brings around him his major donor for his presidential campaign in 1912 and 1916 is Cleveland Dodge who had also been a classmate of his at Princeton but is a leading backer of missionary institutions in in the Middle East and I think Wilson's interest in what's going on in the Ottoman Empire is is partly influenced by Dodge and so I think he very much is influenced by his Presbyterianism but I don't think it's I'm not sure if it's necessarily decisive in in in his it certainly needs to sort of a his belief in a certain destiny of America's role in the world but it's it's hard to separate that from his sort of broader belief in American civil religion of manifest destiny I think there's as I say practical elements in terms of his support for missionary groups and his support for for sort of religious organizations but I think in terms of his larger foreign policy philosophy it's sort of part of it but I'm not sure if it if it necessarily is is determinative but other scholars would argue differently and I think that is a really important new area of research which I think for a long time was sort of was sort of a throwaway line that he was sort of a child of the man's and that was important to understand his worldview and but at the same time I don't think people have sort of dug into the the nuances of his theology and I and I wouldn't necessarily call myself an expert on that everything I see it sort of complements his his belief in manifest destiny and America's civil religion rather than being something that sort of necessarily separate from it. Charlie I could go on and on thank you so much it's been fabulous for me and for our audience I now want to pass the baton over to Phil to bring us to a conclusion. Thank you Charlie very very much it's been a terrific afternoon and Mark and Sandy thank you both. I do want to in closing to acknowledge the endorsement of our program this year by the humanities Texas whose programs advance education by seeking to improve the quality of classroom teaching and supporting libraries and museums and creating opportunities for lifelong learning of course we at OLLI completely endorse. Many of us in the audience are members of UT OLLI and friends of the LBJ library or perhaps both if not please check us out both UT OLLI and the friends of the LBJ offer a wide variety of outstanding in-person and virtual programs just as you've seen today with the distinguished scholar Charlie Label. I thank all of you for tuning in. We will be back next Thursday January 19 at 4 p.m. for a conversation with Elizabeth Barron, a University of Virginia historian about Abraham Lincoln and the end of the Civil War. We hope to see you next time again thank you Charlie and good night.