American Archangel

The Idea of the League of Nations

“Before creation there must be destruction. If my soul stands in the way, then I'll toss it aside. Yes, I have no choice but to move forward.”

President Woodrow Wilson won reelection in 1916 because “he kept us out of the war.” Then, in 1917, in response to the disastrous Zimmerman Telegram and Germany’s resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare, Wilson sought a declaration of war, seemingly giving into the Anglomania war fever of imperialists like Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge.

Why?

Was Wilson a tool of international capitalists and banking clans, the same who some suspected of starting the war for gain? Or was Wilson enthralled to the British, luring the American public to support a conflict that, seemingly, had nothing to do with their interests? And what was the League of Nations anyway? Was it a harebrained idealist scheme to create one-world government as its critics claimed?

The short answer: No on all charges. Wilson was not an idealist (nor a realist) and he was not ensnared to any but his own conscience. He pursued an ideal that ultimately failed, but offers a vision today for America’s role in the world. It is a paradigm that should inform America’s future relationship not only with Europe, but also, in conclusion, with Latin America. The idea of the League of Nations is a paradigm, though deeply misunderstood, to advance out of the current darkness.

It is important, first, to clear up misconceptions. Wilson was undoubtedly an Anglophile. He admired the premiership of William Gladstone, but his anchor was the political philosophy of Edmund Burke. He rejected the “Whig” view of “Newtonian” government, the state as a machine that could be adjusted at whim. Rather, government reflected the nation as an organic entity, one that grew out of the people it oversaw (Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 54-55). That, however, did not collapse American interests into British interests, even as the two people shared common heritage and virtues. The American nation grew apart, and its own history had carved a very different future with a different canon of heroes. It was why Wilson would praise democracy, though in a way many contemporary anti-Wilsonians may find surprising:

I do not believe in a democratic form of government because I think it the best form of government. It is the clumsiest form of government in the world. If you wanted to make a merely effective government you would make it of fewer persons. If you wanted to invent a government that would act with speed and quick force, you would be doing a clumsy thing to make it democratic in structure. That is not purposed to be the best form, but to have the best sources.

Did you ever think how the world managed politically to get through the middle ages? It got through them without breakdown because it had the Roman Catholic Church to draw upon for native gifts, and by no other means that I can see. If you will look at the politics of the middle ages you will see that states depended for their guidance upon great ecclesiastics, and they depended upon them because the community itself was in strata, was in classes, and the Roman Catholic Church was a great democracy. Any peasant could become a priest, and any priest a chancellor. And this reservoir of democratic power and native ability was what brought the middle ages through their politics. If they had not had a democratic supply of capacity they could not have conducted a sterile aristocratic polity. An aristocratic polity goes to seed. The establishment of a democratic nation means that any man in it may, if he consecrate himself and use himself in the right way, come to be the recognized instrument of a whole nation. It is an incomparable resourceful arrangement, though it is not the best practical organization of government. (Woodrow Wilson, Robert E. Lee: An Interpretation).

The purpose of democracy was not efficient government, but the conditions to allow national genius to coalesce even amongst the most humble. The lack of class meant any man, through his power and charisma, may ascend to the highest ranks of leadership. Wilson’s apology was not an argument for equality, but the possibility of the great man.

It was also a criticism of aristocracy, often degenerating into a self-interested dysgenic oligarchy, that perverted a nation’s greatness. Britain and Germany both had enshrined plutocrats that dominated their governments, and Wilson never conceded his general wariness of the dominant European powers. When the Great War began, Wilson was sympathetic to the Entente because of German brutality towards the Belgians and the subversion of their national sovereignty. Nevertheless, Wilson was no less hostile to the British when brutally repressed the Irish in the Easter Uprising of 1916. As Wilson put it: England had the Earth and Germany wanted it (Cooper, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography, 343). Despite Wilson’s reliance on Colonel Edward House, a man he often called his second self, Wilson distanced himself increasingly from the wily Texan when the President learned of his deceit. In short, House sold Wilson as an Anglophile interventionist secretly, in spite of Wilson’s reservations about support for Britain (Cooper, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography, 295). In all things, as the President told the press, the policy was “America First,” a term he coined that would later be used against him (Cooper, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography, 278).

So why did he change? Wilson did not enter the war for democracy and had no interest to impose democracy on any nation, as some nations were not fit for this form of government (Cooper, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography, 431-432). Wilson also did not enter the war as an eager ally of the Entente, with the American Expeditionary Force operating under its own separate command (Cooper, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography, 402). It was the case that German aggression, in Mexico and on the high seas, eventually forced Wilson’s hand. But that does not explain why Wilson sought war, what he hoped to gain. It was, ultimately, to bring the Monroe Doctrine to its full form:

On January 22, 1917, the president delivered his “peace without victory” address to the Senate. The war must be ended on terms that would establish, declared Wilson, “not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace.” The only way to achieve that end was through “a peace without victory. It is not pleasant to say this ... I am seeking only to face realities and to face them without soft concealments. Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser” and would therefore “rest only as upon quicksand. Only a peace between equals can last.” Wilson hoped to establish such a peace through “an equality of rights” among nations. The indispensable right was self-government, he contended, “not because of any abstract principle . . .but for the same reason that I have spoken of the other conditions of peace which seem to me clearly indispensable—because I wish frankly to uncover realities. Any peace which does not recognize and accept this principle will inevitably be upset. It will not rest upon the affections and convictions of mankind.”

Wilson also proposed to build lasting peace upon the free use of the seas for commerce and upon relief from the burdens and dangers of excessive armament. Above all, he pledged “that the people and government of the United States will join the other civilized nations of the world in guaranteeing the permanence of peace upon such terms as I have named.” Wilson closed with an argument intended to disarm domestic critics. “I am proposing, as it were,” he asserted, “that the nations should with one accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world ... I am proposing that all nations henceforth avoid entangling alliances which would draw them into competitions of power; catch them in a net of intrigue and selfish rivalry, and disturb their own affairs with influences obtruded from without. There is no entangling alliance in a concert of power. When all unite to act in the same sense and with the same purpose all act in the common interest and are free to live their own lives under a common protection.” These were, Wilson insisted, “American principles, American policies. We could stand for no others.” Since they were also desired by “forward looking men and women everywhere,” these were “the principles of mankind and must prevail” (Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 313).

Contrary to conservative critics of Wilson, he had not begun a new form of American imperial internationalism (something that bubbled to the surface during the administrations of McKinley and Roosevelt). Rather, Wilson fulfilled the essence of the Monroe Doctrine, not to entangle America in one set of European powers against another, but to end entanglement altogether. The American cry — “Lafayette, we are here!” — reflected Wilson’s vision, it was time to unite Europe around a new and lasting peace, one that flowed from the bosom of Columbia. If Wilson’s intervention had any parallel, it was Metternich’s Concert of Europe to reset affairs after the revolutionary fires of Jacobinism and Bonaparte. America did not enter the Great War to change human nature or unleash an ideological end to all war. Rather, it was in recognition of man’s frailty and sinfulness that a new international order, among civilized peoples, could bring collective justice and prosperity. Wilson did not want the war, but he would risk all in the strife:

Wilson’s basic argument in the war address was analogous to Luther’s contention. In trying to make the world freer, more just, and more peaceful, both he and the United States confronted the sin of the World War. Yet, as he argued, continued armed neutrality would result in much of the destruction of war without the advantage of being able to influence the war’s conduct and aims. Wilson’s choice, therefore, was not the possibly lesser, but also less promising, evil of staying out. Rather, for the sake of greater leverage in pursuing his international program, he would “sin boldly” by going into the war. He made the decision, not as a Nietzschean Priest or Superman, but as the protagonist in a Christian tragedy (Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 323).

As the title of Cooper’s work suggests, Wilson did not fit the Nietzschean paradigm of charismatic genius. He was not the warrior, but neither was Roosevelt, who was more the blustering and scheming priest who used the name of God to advance his own interests (it was unclear if Roosevelt even believed in the existence of God or an afterlife, despite his frequent use of KJV English; Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 88). Wilson was reserved and he did not dare to casually invoke the Bible to advance his political aims. Rather, like the prince of a Trauerspiel, Wilson risked his reputation and his very soul in a bid to bring about a true peace, one not forced upon one set of Europeans by another. American power and American distance could bring all to the table, England and France as well as Germany and Austria (even Russia), to forge a new settlement.

This mutuality did not mean neutrality. Wilson blamed the Second Reich for the ravages of France and Belgium, and it was they that must bend the knee to the Entente. The Germans must remove their armies from the field and cease their attacks upon commerce. Wilson, however, did not want to punish or ruin the Germans. There was no talk of invasion, let alone unconditional surrender. It was the ultimate decision of the German people to determine their own future, one that would only happen through diplomacy (Cooper, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography, 444). War was the ugly sin of directing this process, not letting Europeans butcher themselves until none were left. America had a role to fulfill in brokering a peace, and Wilson risked America’s soul in the contest.

America won, the Central Powers ended the war, and Wilson failed. The story of the League’s rise and fall is commonplace. The French scorned the Fourteen Points as more onerous than the Ten Commandments, Wilson more demanding than God. The British rejected any idea that the seas did not belong to them. Wilson’s good-will and lack of experience (in spite of The Inquiry, an expert team to compile policy dossiers on all the powers involved) doomed his efforts. The treachery of Colonel House left the British delegation incensed that Wilson had no intention to posture as the victor over the defeated. The French wanted blood, bearing a hatred of Germans unmatched until the Red Army and the Morgenthau Plan in the Second World War. The border realignment with Italy failed, setting the stage for the 1920s. The Ottoman Empire was carved into Protectorates that the victorious powers would fail to maintain, ultimately creating the conditions of Middle East chaos today. The Entente shattered the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in spite of Wilson’s effort to retain the polity (Cooper, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography, 395). The settlement of the Great War reflected less Wilson than David Lloyd George, who coined the phrases “the war to end all wars” and “self-determination” for the new states of a deimperialized Europe (Cooper, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography, 6).

The idea of a League of Nations survived, but the American public rejected it (with imperialists, like Lodge, switching to isolationists out of cynicism). Wilson had his final, debilitating stroke, and while his subordinates broke the power of the reds in the United States, his vision was dashed. In his last days, still frustrated with the stupidity of French wrath, Wilson predicted that one day soon another Bismarck would appear in Germany and this time France would be steamrolled for good. Then that day came, the new Germany departed from the League of Nations, and the toothless body came to an end. Wilson’s dream incinerated in the conflagration that Wilson had fought to prevent.

Liberals have claimed Wilson as the progenitor for the United Nations, that feckless impotent chamber of internationalists, but that is far from true. First, the United Nations is clearly structured as a postwar spheres-of-influence foreign policy that Theodore Roosevelt, not Woodrow Wilson, advocated. The security council was intended to be a means for the Allies to govern the world, something that eroded into the Cold War tit-for-tat. Secondly, the United Nations did not have qualifications for membership, which was early married to the American policy of decolonization. While the nineteenth century brought the nadir of colonial empire, with all the hopes of uplift and regeneration belied through uprisings and self-criticism. Wilson did not favor naked dominance of non-European peoples, though that did not mean they had a right to govern themselves or possessed peer status to sit in a concert of power (Wilson was opposed to Japanese equality with the League nations). Third, even more importantly, the League of Nations did not come with a policy of economic globalization. There was no talk of a Bretton Woods agreement to strap Europe to dollarization. Rather, the Bank of International Settlements would have likely come about to continue a mutuality between the various powers of Europe, good or ill.

It is precisely because globalism has failed (the postwar order’s transmutation from Bretton Woods to Trilateralism), it is precisely because the United Nations is worthless, that Wilson’s dream should not be forgotten. It is easy for Americans to posture as isolationists, but the interests of Americans (as a people) cannot forget or ignore the needs of Europe. This need is not only for economic purposes, though the tendency towards widgit protectionism (i.e. to onshore industrial wage jobs in America because they’re jobs) would plunge America into the nadir of Kirchnerismo. Free trade with other western peoples, markets opened to American production, is a positive good. However, the concern is also in terms of culture and foreign policy. The performative scorn that some online Americans indulge is counter-productive. Americans should not laugh at Europeans struggling against demographic and cultural crises, especially as America’s foreign policy establishment (especially under Clinton and Obama) has driven political alternatives to the blob out of the political mainstream, even to the point of targeted prosecution.

The League of Nations was an attempt at confederated mutuality, America providing the balance to unite Europe. Obviously, this disposition involves a high view of America and Americans, a nobility of spirit and intentions, that not a few Europeans may find haughty if not ridiculous. It may not have much empirical evidence, but it is an aspiration in the genius of the nation, one that produced men like Sergeant Alvin York of Tennessee and continues to create American heroes today. It is to reject both chauvinism and retreat, let alone their loathsome combination which has reared its visage during the Carter and Obama administrations. Nationalism has a higher end beyond itself, the freedom and prosperity of nations maintained through cooperation towards a shared civilizational end.

In ecclesiastical terms that may have sat in the recesses of Wilson’s soul: it was neither the imperialism of the papacy nor the retreat to a national church-structure as some Anglicans have pursued. Rather it was a confederation of sister churches that supported one another in their plurality. It was the Reformed consensus that could unite Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Englishmen, Scots, Swiss, and imperial Germans to issue a dogmatic statement in the Synod of Dort. Per political theology, concepts of church reflect concepts of states and vice versa. It is Christian nations in cooperation, brothers dwelling in peace, that will bring shared prosperity and justice to all involved.

The League offers a way forward, not simply contempt for America or neglect for American friends abroad. It is for this reason that a similar model should form America’s partnership with Latin America, a concert of power that is dedicated to the same civilizational aim without confusion or conflation. America plays the role of the keystone: a burden that may easily be resented or abused, but it is a burden that must be risked. A neo-Wilsonian League for the Americas constitutes the coalescence of what shall be called “the Pan-American Network,” a concept that will become more important as the century unfolds. It is neither swinging a big stick nor groveling for being a bad neighbor, but is the alliance of mutual support and trade, towards a similar end of national leaderships derived from a similar heritage.

It is hard to say what Wilson would make of the contemporary world. But his vision should not be abandoned. It is, perhaps, the only workable future.