In the 1930s Charles Beard had criticized American entry into World War I. Beard saw economic reasons, in particular the interests of industry, in motivating the United States’ intervention in the Great War. Even when facing the threat of fascism and totalitarianism in the mid- and late 1930s, Beard favored American isolationism and criticized Franklin D. Roosevelt’s foreign policy.38 Meanwhile, also in the 1930s, Charles
38 Charles A. Beard, The Devil Theory of War: Inquiry into the Nature of History and the
Possibility of Keeping Out of War (New York: The Vanguard Press, 1936) and Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels: an Estimate of American Foreign Policy (New York: The Macmillan
Seymour and Newton Baker upheld traditional views. They maintained that the United States primarily entered World War I because of Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare and not because of pro-Allied or financial interests. Ultimately, in their view, the United States entered the war to preserve peace and democracy.39 Thus, already in the 1930s there was a debate concerning American entry into World War I between materialistic and idealist motives.
In the 1960s, Arno Mayer focused on various nations’ World War I war aims from 1917 to 1918. Mayer argued that each state’s domestic and foreign policies were determined by the internal struggle for power between the forces on the right and the left. The right championed expansionist goals and polices that continued the “Old Diplomacy” and status quo. On the other hand, the left supported non-annexation of territories and “New
Diplomacy.” The program of the “New Diplomacy” included open diplomacy (instead of secret treaties), freedom of trade (instead of restrictive trade barriers), no forcible
annexations without plebiscites, the self-determination of people, an armaments reduction, the greater democratization of governments, and an international body that could mediate disputes (such as the League of Nations). Mayer defined these objectives as “liberal” and “progressive,” and President Woodrow Wilson embodied “New Diplomacy” and
international progressivism. Wilson promoted “the war to end all wars” through American
Company, 1939); Another critic of the US in World War I during the 1930s was: Charles Callan Tansill, America Goes to War (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1938).
39 Charles Seymour, American Diplomacy during the World War (Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins Press, 1934); Newton Baker, Why We Went to War (New York: Harper for Council on Foreign Relations, 1936).
involvement in World War I, and once an Allied victory was secured, his Fourteen Points became an extension of his liberal war aims.40
Wilson’s antagonist in promoting a new world order was Lenin. Mayer contended that Wilson and Lenin both symbolized “New Diplomacy,” but to a different extent. Wilson’s “New World” and Lenin’s socialist “New Society” had things in common. Both Wilson and Lenin portrayed a new era and championed open diplomacy, self-determination, and the creation of an international body, whether it be the League of Nations or a form of international socialism/communism. Nevertheless, Mayer also asserts that there were huge differences between Wilson and Lenin. Lenin, being more radically left, advocated the elimination of big industry and heavy state control. Mayer concludes that ultimately some would “turn to Wilson, others to Lenin.”41
There have been many recent books reexamining the Treaty of Versailles and other World War I peace treaties.42 But particularly useful for its breadth of coverage and variety of interpretation is The Treaty of Versailles: A Reassessment After 75 Years, which contains twenty-six scholarly and thought-provoking essays on the treaty.43 In one essay “The Minorities Question at the Paris Peace Conference: The Polish Minority Treaty, June 28, 1919," Carole Fink examines the post-World War I treaties in terms of how the European
40Arno J. Mayer, Wilson vs. Lenin: Political Origins of the New Diplomacy, 1917-1918
(New York: The World Publishing Company, 1959, 1964), 54-57.
41Mayer, Wilson vs. Lenin,197, 333, 340, 350, 367.
42 Books written during the 1980s include: Michael Dockrill and J. Douglas Goold,
Peace without Promise – Britain and the Peace Conference 1919-1923 (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1981); Arthur Walworth, Wilson and his Peacemakers: American diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 (New York: Norton, 1986).
43Manfred F. Boemeke, Elisabeth Glaser, and Gerald Feldman, eds., The Treaty of
nations sought to protect the rights of minorities.44 Given the impossibility of creating ethnically homogenous states in East Central Europe, various multi-ethnic countries, such as Poland, were obligated to respect the cultural and linguistic rights of their minorities. The League of Nations was to ensure the enforcement of these minority treaties.
Several historians challenge the harsh verdict of Versailles. William Keylor contends that Versailles was fair and Germany was not economically destroyed by the reparations, which were ultimately paid by American investors rather than German taxpayers.45 Gerhard Weinberg maintains that Versailles actually strengthened Germany’s position in Europe relative to the prewar period rather than weakening it.46 At the other end of the spectrum, Jim Powell maintains a sweeping accusatory approach. He calls Woodrow Wilson the “worst president in American history” and blames Wilson’s foreign policies, in particular entering the Great War, for causing the rise of Hitler and Stalin, World War II, and the death of tens millions.47 With their focus on Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and Eastern Europe in general, these books on the peace settlement have little to say about Austria in particular.
44A related book by Fink is:
National Frontiers and the Two World Wars (Basle, 1996).
45 “A Reevaluation of the Versailles Peace," Relevance: The Quarterly Journal of the Great
War Society, Vol. V, No. 2 (Summer 1996). Keylor also edited The Legacy of the Great War: Peacemaking, 1919 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998).
46Gerhard Weinberg,
Germany, Hitler, and World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 2, 19.
47 Powell states that before the US entered, the war was at a stalemate and most likely would
have ended by peace negotiations in which neither side received harsh terms. However, US entry adversely altered things and made it possible for France and Britain to enact a punitive and humiliating peace against Germany that included the “war guilt clause” and huge
reparations. Wilson's War: How Woodrow Wilson's Great Blunder led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and World War II (New York: Crown Forum, 2005); Another revisionist work critical of US involvement in World War I is: William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1972).
Recent scholarship has left a gap in terms of American and British diplomacy with Austria in 1918 and 1919.