USA HISTORY

After WWI, the main Republican opposition to the Versailles Treaty was based largely on the idea that the treaty

(A) did not punish the Central Power harshly enough.

(B) ** would require the United States to join the League of Nations and involve the U.S. in future military conflicts.

(C) did not give the United States an important role in world affairs.

(D) would require the United States to assume the cost of rebuilding the war-torn European economies.

Concept note-1: -Senate opposition to the Treaty of Versailles cited Article 10 of the treaty, which dealt with collective security and the League of Nations. This article, opponents argued, ceded the war powers of the U.S. Government to the League’s Council.

Concept note-2: -The United States never joined the League. Most historians hold that the League operated much less effectively without U.S. participation than it would have otherwise. However, even while rejecting membership, the Republican Presidents of the period, and their foreign policy architects, agreed with many of its goals.

Concept note-3: -The Senate has, at times, rejected treaties when its members felt their concerns were not adequately addressed. In 1919 the Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles, which formally ended World War I, in part because President Woodrow Wilson had failed to take senators’ objections to the agreement into consideration.

Concept note-4: -The Treaty of Versailles is one of the most controversial armistice treaties in history. The treaty’s so-called “war guilt” clause forced Germany and other Central Powers to take all the blame for World War I. This meant a loss of territories, reduction in military forces, and reparation payments to Allied powers.

Concept note-5: -Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge and other Republicans opposed joining the League of Nations because they did not want the US to be pulled into more international conflicts where American soldiers would have to fight for the interests of other countries.