What U.S. traditions, apparent lessons of history, contemporary crises, or other factors account for Woodrow Wilson's failure to win Senate ratification of the Treaty of Versailles?

Résumé du document

"I have loved but one flag and I cannot share that devotion and give affection to the mongrel banner invented for a league. The United States is the world's best hope, but if you fetter her in the interests and quarrels of other nations, if you tangle her in the intrigues of Europe, you will destroy her power for good and endanger her very existence". These were the words Senator Lodge used when he delivered his speech against the League of Nations, on August 12, 1919, In these words he questioned if the only reason why the Senate rejected the treaty of Versailles was America's traditional reluctance to get involved in European affairs? Certainly not. In fact, many different factors might account for Wilson's failure to win Senate ratification of the treaty that was to set up a short and difficult peace in the aftermath of World War I. Why did the U.S. Senate twice in late 1919 and early 1920 reject the treaty of Versailles?

Extraits

[...] From May onward, the day President Wilson embraced the concept of the League, he began to regard it as his own idea and property. Furthermore, Wilson's character was such that he did make several enemies of opposition senators and isolationists. In addition, Wilson's bad personal health, which was ruined by October 1919, probably did not help him either. His negotiating blunders, too, played a major role in his failure to win Senate approval of the treaty. It was a great mistake on Wilson's part not to include any members of Congress, nor any major Republican leaders (the only Republican was Henry D. [...]

[...] traditions, apparent lessons of history, contemporary crises, or other factors account for Woodrow Wilson's failure to win Senate ratification of the Treaty of Versailles? have loved but one flag and I cannot share that devotion and give affection to the mongrel banner invented for a league. [ ] The United States is the world's best hope, but if you fetter her in the interests and quarrels of other nations, if you tangle her in the intrigues of Europe, you will destroy her power for good and endanger her very existence”[1]. [...]

[...] On March when the final vote took place, Wilson failed to gain the necessary two-thirds majority to ratify the treaty. In fact, the division of senate opinion on the treaty into three groups also explains why the treaty was not ratified. One of these groups the democratic “Supporters” was loyal to Wilson and in favor of a ratification of the treaty without any amendments; whereas two the “Reservationists” led by Lodge and the “Irreconcilables” were against the treaty in its original form. [...]

[...] Thus, America, whom Wilson expected to lead the League, never joined the League of Nations and another world war occurred. Yet, Wilson's mistakes and the League of Nations' weaknesses were to be remembered twenty-five years later, when the U.S. Senate would ratify by a large majority the Charter of the United Nations. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr., Against the League of Nations, Washington, D.C., August Walter A. McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State, the American Encounter with the World since 1776 (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1997) Walter LaFeber, The American Age (New York: Norton, 2002) Arthur S. [...]

[...] As a conclusion, the factors that resulted in Wilson's eventual failure to win Senate ratification of the Treaty of Versailles are undoubtedly numerous and complex, both internal and external to U.S. politics and traditions. The tensions and negotiations between the victors, the international context and the weaknesses of the treaty might all account for the Senate's denial of the text, as could traditional foreign policy principles, political tensions in America and even Wilson's personal character. At the end of World War the United States Senate was by no means ready to take the responsibility of becoming a world peacekeeper. [...]