USA HISTORY

AMERICAN IMPERIALISM(1890 1919)

TREATY OF VERSAILLES

[SOURCES]
Why did President Wilson reject the changes added by the Reservationists?

(A) He was stubborn

(B) ** He did not want to go back to Europe to renegotiate the terms of the Treaty

(C) He did not want to go back to Russia to renegotiate the terms of the Treaty

(D) He believed that it would lead to another war in Europe

EXPLANATIONS BELOW

Concept note-1: -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-2: -Wilson chose to ignore Lodge. He offended the Senate by refusing to include senators among the negotiators accompanying him to the Paris Peace Conference and by making conference results public before discussing them with committee members.

Concept note-3: -Reservationists were most concerned about Article 10 of the League of Nations charter, which required member nations to work together-and even supply troops-to keep the peace. 3. Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, the leader of the reservationists, had both personal and political reasons for opposing the treaty.

Concept note-4: -Wilson got self-determination for the peoples of Eastern Europe, and a League of Nations, but he hated the Treaty because few of his ‘Fourteen Points’ got into the Treaty. Worst of all, when Wilson went back to America, the Senate refused to join the League of Nations, and refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles!