Notes and Stuff from Friday, February 9th

HEY 4TH PERIOD!

Okay, so here's the deal with notes on Friday (and some of Thursday, I think...).

So relations with Germany have all gone to mud by now. The US had broken all diplomatic ties with Germany. In an act of very, very aggressive "self-defense," Germany decides to go on the "passive-aggressive" kind of stance. Because the US broke ties with Germany, Germany feared the the US might declare war. So Germany sent word to Mexico, by way of the Zimmerman Telegram, and said that if the US attacks Germany in an act of war, that Germany would back Mexico up in attacking the US and attempting to reclaim all US possessions lost by Mexico during the Mexican-American War.

British intelligence intercepted the message and promptly relayed it to the US government, as if to say, "HELP US PLEASE." So now the US is angry, and they declared war on Germany, officially ending US neutrality and officially beginning US involvement in WWI.

So the war went on for a while, and then it's all about to end. When the fighting as stopped, the parties involved meet in Paris to settle a peace treaty. Wilson went to Paris with leading US Democrats (This is important because Congress is controlled by Republicans...) and entered the negotiations.

Wilson is hell-bent on having a League of Nations and his 14 Points. Deliberations go on for a while, and eventually, his 14 Points are all but gone from the treaty, but he bargains them away and gets his League of Nations. The Treaty of Versailles is finalized and it is brought before Congress. That's where the fun began...

Republicans are FURIOUS. Remember, Wilson is a Democrat, and he brought leading Democrats with him to Paris, but no Republicans. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives are controlled by Republicans, and Republicans are angry that no Republican leader was invited to go and take part in the negotiations.

So when Wilson brings the Treaty of Versailles before Congress, not much enthusiasm greets it. By the mandate of the Constitution, two-thirds of the Senate must approve of a treaty for the US to be bound to the treaty. There were 48 states, which meant that there were 96 US Senators. Therefore, it would take 64 positive votes to approve of the treaty, but only 33 negatives to disapprove of it.

Many legislators are uneasy because of the language of the treaty, which was worded so that if one member of the League of Nations was attacked, it was to be viewed as an attack on all. That wasn't viewed as fair by most.

Would such an agreement bring the US into unnecessary military conflict? Well, there was a Republican Senator by the name of Henry Cabot Lodge. He did not like not being invited to the peace conference, he did not like the treaty, and he wanted change - NOW. So he proposed 55 amendments to the Treaty of Versailles, some ridiculous, but many legitimate.

In the end, neither the Treaty of Versailles as written, nor the version with Lodge's amendments were passed in Congress. The US therefore never joined the Treaty of Versailles or the League of Nations. The League quickly proved to be a failure without US involvement, and its failure left the world in a sense of disarray. This mess was a strong factor in the build-up to what became WWII two decades later.

So there you have it. Not exactly brief, but oh well.

See you all on Monday, and pray for snow.

Wesley