The Illusion of Victory (86 page)

64
. Davis,
FDR:The Beckoning of Destiny
, 541. In this first volume of his landmark biography of Franklin Roosevelt (unfortunately unfinished), this remarkably forthright historian saw with an unrelenting eye Wilson’s tragic mistakes.

65
. Seymour,
Intimate Papers of Colonel House,
4:160–165.

66
. Ibid., 165–169.

67
. Ibid., 183–184.

68
. Ibid., 188–189.

69
. Livermore,
Politics Is Adjourned,
224–225.

70
. Baker,
Woodrow Wilson,
vol. 8,
Armistice
, 558; and Livermore,
Politics Is Adjourned
, 226–227.

71
. Livermore,
Politics Is Adjourned
, 230–236; and Thomas,
Thomas Riley Marshall,
182.

72
. Livermore,
Politics Is Adjourned
, 226; and Kennedy,
Over Here
, 244.

73
. Kennedy,
Over Here,
244; and Thomas J. Knock,
To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order
(New York, 1992), 184.

74
. Knock,
To End All Wars,
185–186.

75
. Case and La Follette,
Robert M. La Follette,
902, 910–911.

76
. Baker,
Woodrow Wilson,
vol. 8,
Armistice
, 563.

77
. Seymour,
Intimate Papers of Colonel House,
4:121.

78
. Harry R. Rudin,
Armistice 1918
(New Haven, 1944), 186.

79
. Toland,
No Man’s Land
, 551–552; Smythe,
Pershing: General of the Armies
, 231; and Baker,
Woodrow Wilson,
vol. 8,
Armistice,
570–571.

80
. Baker,
Woodrow Wilson,
vol. 8,
Armistice,
572.

81
. Walter Henry Nelson,
The Soldier Kings: The House of Hohenzollern
(New York, 1970), 434.

82
. Ibid., 436–437.

83
. Pershing,
My Experiences
, 2:375. The author’s father, Thomas J. Fleming, was a sergeant in the 312th Regiment of the 78th Division during the Argonne struggle. Commissioned in the field when all the officers in his company were killed or wounded, he went to officers’ training school in France after the war. His papers reveal the new tactics Hunter Liggett and his staff devised to deal with machine guns. Charging guns was specifically repudiated. “The platoon that advances all at once plays into the enemy’s hands. Even though the position be taken, the enemy is well satisfied with the losses he has been able to inflict.” Instead attacks were carried out by twelve-man “platoon gangs” led by corporals. Each gang consisted of three automatic riflemen, two grenade riflemen, three “bombers” (grenade throwers) and three ordinary riflemen. The gangs maneuvered on the battlefield using the firepower of the automatic rifles and rifle grenades to keep the enemy machine guns and supporting infantry busy while the rest of the gang—and nearby gangs—attacked from the flanks (Papers of Lieutenant Thomas J. Fleming, World War I Survey, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pa.).

84
. Smythe,
Pershing: General of the Armies,
228–229; and O’Connor,
Black Jack Pershing,
329–330.

85
. Rolfe L. Hillman, “Crossing the Meuse,”
Relevance (Journal of the Great War Society)
2, nos. 2–4 (1993): 2.

86
. Ibid., 17–18.

87
. Mead,
The Doughboys
, 338.

88
. Ibid., 338–339.

89
. Coffman,
The War to End All Wars
, 356.

90
. Nelson,
The Soldier Kings
, 439–440.

91
. Millard,
I Saw Them Die
, 108–110.

92
. Smythe,
Pershing: General of the Armies,
232; and Toland,
No Man’s Land,
573–574.

93
. Smythe,
Pershing: General of the Armies
, 231.

94
. Ibid., 233; and Pershing,
My Experiences
, 2:395.

95
. DeWeerd,
President Wilson Fights His War
, 392. Mead,
The Doughboys,
353; and Schaffer,
America in the Great War,
202. Some historians have reduced the AEF’s days in action to the largescale combat that began at Cantigny on May 28, 1918, and escalated when the Germans reached the Marne two days later (Arthur Wilson Page,
Our 110 Days of Fighting
[New York, 1920]).

96
. Ferguson,
The Pity of War
, 312; Thomas Parrish, ed.,
The Simon and Schuster Encylopedia of World War II
(New York, 1978), 645–649; and Allen Millett and Peter Maslowski,
For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America
(New York, 1984), 504, 542.

97
. Seymour,
Intimate Papers of Colonel House
, 4:143; and Baker,
Woodrow Wilson,
vol. 8,
Armistice,
580.

1
. Seymour,
Intimate Papers of Colonel House,
4:210–211.

2
. Ibid., 212.

3
. Ibid., 213.

4
. Garraty,
Henry Cabot Lodge
, 347.

5
. Blum,
Joe Tumulty and the Wilson Era
, 170.

6
. Seymour,
Intimate Papers of Colonel House
, 4:223–225.

7
. Ibid., 235.

8
. Thomas A. Bailey,
Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace
(Chicago, 1963), 92; and Willis Fletcher Johnson,
George Harvey: A Passionate Patriot
(Boston, 1929), 263. Humorist Will Rogers, a Democrat, chortled that Wilson had told the Republicans,“We will split 50–50. I will go and you fellows can stay.”

9
. Garraty,
Henry Cabot Lodge
, 347–348.

10
. Ibid., 343.

11
. August Heckscher,
Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
(New York, 1991), 496; Bailey,
Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace,
105; and Case and La Follette,
Robert La Follette
, 914–915.

12
. Heckscher,
Woodrow Wilson
, 497–498.

13
. Seymour,
Intimate Papers of Colonel House,
4:151; and William E. Leuchtenberg,
The Perils of Prosperity, 1914–32
(Chicago, 1958), 52.

14
. Sullivan,
Our Times
, vol. 5,
Over Here,
436–438.

15
. Ira Gregg Wolper,
The Origins of Public Diplomacy: Woodrow Wilson, George Creel and the Committee on Public Information,
Ph. D. dissertation (University of Chicago, 1991), 305–309.

16
. Baker,
Woodrow Wilson,
vol. 8,
Armistice,
592–593.

17
. Peter Rowland,
David Lloyd George: A Biography
(New York, 1975), 463.

18
. Ibid., 469–470.

19
. Ibid., 470–475.

20
. Bailey,
Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace,
111.

21
. Seymour,
Intimate Papers of Colonel House,
4:253–254.

22
. Sullivan,
Our Times,
vol. 5,
Over Here,
537–538.

23
. Gardner,
Safe for Democracy
, 2.

24
. Ibid. At a stag dinner given him by Lloyd George, Wilson spoke warmly of the “bond of deathless friendship” the war had created between the United States and Great Britain. But these off-the-record remarks were never published (Heckscher,
Woodrow Wilson
, 507–509).

25
. Gardner,
Safe for Democracy,
2–3.

26
. Levin,
Edith and Woodrow,
240.

27
. Seymour,
Intimate Papers of Colonel House,
4:255.

28
. Baker,
Woodrow Wilson,
vol. 8,
Armistice,
582.

29
. George H. Nash,
The Life of Herbert Hoover, the Humanitarian, 1914–17
(New York, 1988), 65ff; and Smith,
Triumph of Herbert Hoover
, 86.

30
. Vincent,
Post–World War I Blockade of Germany
, 134.

31
. Ibid., 136.

32
. Ibid., 139.

33
. Bailey,
Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace
, 119; and Vincent,
Post–World War I Blockade of Germany
, 146.

34
. Vincent,
Post–World War I Blockade of Germany
, 126, 152–153.

35
. Ibid., 154–155.

36
. Ibid., 158–159.

37
. Ibid., 163–164.

38
. Ibid., 173.

39
. William Klingaman,
1919:The Year Our World Began
(New York, 1987), 10.

40
. Renehan,
The Lion’s Pride
, 249.

41
. Sylvia Jukes Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt,
424.

42
. Renehan,
The Lion’s Pride
, 248.

43
. Ward,
A First-Class Temperament
, 421–422.

44
. Renehan,
The Lion’s Pride,
221; and Ward,
A First-Class Temperament,
422.

45
. Ward,
A First-Class Temperament,
422. Arthur Krock,
Memoirs: Sixty Years on the Firing Line
(New York, 1968), 109, presented another version of Wilson’s reaction to TR’s death. Krock, then a reporter for the
Louisville Courier-Journal
, was on the train platform when Wilson received the telegram. He described Wilson’s reaction to the “news that his most powerful adversary had left the lists” as “a kind of spontaneous relaxation.” It was followed by a “distinctly sad” expression. Is “spontaneous relaxation” the same as “a smile of transcendent triumph”? Krock was very fond of Wilson. Lloyd George saw Wilson shortly after he returned to Paris and expressed his condolences to the president on Roosevelt’s death.“I was aghast at the outburst of acrid detestation which flowed from Wilson’s lips,” Lloyd George wrote (David Lloyd George,
Memoirs of the Peace Conference
[New Haven, 1939], 1:147).

46
. Gordon A. Craig,
Germany, 1866–1945
(New York, 1978), 407–408.

47
. Klingaman,
1919,
35–37; and Craig,
Germany
, 409.

48
. Oswald Garrison Villard,
Fighting Years: An Autobiography
(New York, 1939), 397–398.

49
. Case and La Follette,
Robert M. La Follette
, 942–943.

50
. Charles L. Mee, Jr.,
The End of Order: Versailles 1919
(New York, 1980), 45–46; Herbert Hoover,
The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson
(New York, 1958), 70–71; and Ray Stannard Baker,
Woodrow Wilson and the World Settlement
(New York, 1923), 1:174.

51
. Mee,
The End of Order
, 48.

52
. Ibid., 49.

53
. Knock,
To End All Wars
, 204.

54
. Blum,
Joe Tumulty and the Wilson Era
, 172–174.

55
. Tebbel and Watts,
The Press and the Presidency,
387.

56
. Inga Floto,
Colonel House in Paris: A Study of American Policy at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919
(Copenhagen, 1973), 69–70. Cobb’s close relationship with House in Paris collapsed when the newsman discovered the extent of House’s power. He was shocked to find out that “in each U.S. embassy there was one member who was in direct contact with Colonel House and sent him a daily personal report which did not go to the United States. ” Cobb went back to the United States a confused and troubled man. Wilson was, of course, aware of this arrangement. The episode makes even more unlikely the story of Wilson’s unburdening his heart to Cobb on the eve of declaring war. Cobb was clearly not in the presidential loop.

57
. Steel,
Walter Lippmann
, 147. It should be pointed out that Lippmann thought he should have gotten Creel’s job.

58
. Wolper,
Origins of Public Diplomacy
, 320–337.

59
. Baker,
Woodrow Wilson and the World Settlement,
1:256–259.

60
. Knock,
To End All Wars
, 212–213; Hoover,
Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson
, 227–228; and Baker,
Woodrow Wilson and the World Settlement,
1:250–275. Baker devotes an entire chapter to this stormy debate on the German colonies. As he notes glumly at the close,“it was only the first battle of a long and deadly war.”

61
. Bailey,
Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace
, 187.

62
. Knock,
To End All Wars
, 222–224.

63
. Ibid., 224.

64
. John Milton Cooper, Jr.,
Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations
(New York, 2001), 52; and Knock,
To End All Wars
, 225–226.