The Incomplete League

Zak commented on the modernity of Woodrow Wilson's 14 points speech in his post. Zak talked about how people are usually motivated by their own self-interests and are never motivated by the prospect of bettering humanity. I definitely agree with this point, and therefore that would be why the French, in particular, did not accept Wilson's idealism and instead they wanted Germany to pay. This need for revenge was driven solely by the country's self-interest and not by the prospect of bettering all of humanity- especially not Germany. Germany was forced to pay a huge sum of money (the book says 33 billion dollars= the war-guilt clause), surrender a large amount of its land to France, Denmark, and Poland. The Treaty of Versailles also "disarmed Germany, forbid a German air force, and reduced its navy to a token force to match an army capped at 100,000 volunteers" (898). Basically Germany was not in good shape after the war, which definitely contributed to the lasting resentment that Germany felt towards the rest of Europe (which would lead to WWII). Also the rivalries that caused the Great War were not ended by the war or this newly established peace since Germany was still unhappy. I think that if Wilson's 14 points had been brought to fruition Europe would be in a much more stable place than it was after the war because international conflicts would've been settled. As Zak said, humanity on a whole would have been in a better position because everyone would've been united under one title: the League of Nations. Unfortunately Japan refused to join the League, France didn't want Russia or Germany to be allowed to join, and due to conflicts inside the US government- the United States didn't join the League of Nations either. So all in all, "the league began as a utopian response to global conflict and registered the urgency of reorganizing world governance," however, it never succeeded in becoming complete since some major nations were MAJORLY lacking from the League of Nations (900).