The Vision for Peace

IN 1916, before the United States even entered the war, Wilson began to promote his vision of a permanent arrangement to ensure peace on earth. According to biographer Gene Smith, he envisioned “the establishment of a League of Nations which would be a forum for the dispensation of justice for all men and wipe out the threat of war forever.” Then in 1917, and with the United States at war, he became the great crusader for what he hoped would be an everlasting peace and the culminating glory of his career.

He now devoted his energies to spreading his gospel of the League of Nations, as he conceived it. He aimed for a “peace without victory” in which there would not be a vanquished German people but, rather, overthrown militaristic, autocratic rulers.

As the basis for peace negotiations, he established his famous Fourteen Points. These consisted of five general ideals for all the contending nations to respect, plus eight points that dealt with specific political and territorial problems. The 14th point was the most vital, since it represented the very core of Wilson’s crusade​—the establishment of a League of Nations.

“The Greatest Success or the Supremest Tragedy”

He was so convinced of having God’s backing in his project that he insisted on attending the Paris Peace Conference in 1919​—this in spite of the fact that many political friends thought that the president of the United States should remain independent of the peace negotiations. He believed that he had the people of the world behind him even if he did not have all the politicians. He was convinced that he was God’s instrument for peace. He, more than anyone else, had to go to Paris.

He confided to his private secretary, Tumulty: “This trip will either be the greatest success or the supremest tragedy in all history; but I believe in a Divine Providence . . . It is my faith that no body of men, however they concert their power or their influence, can defeat this great world enterprise.” (Italics ours.) As one authority states: “The President was determined to use his power and prestige to have the final peace settlement include a plan for a League of Nations.”

Back in November 1918, the German armies were at the point of defeat. They were offered an armistice that would bring the war to a halt. Negotiations were started that involved Britain’s Welsh Prime Minister Lloyd George, rugged French Premier Georges Clemenceau, cultured Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando, and the inscrutable Japanese representative, Count Nobuaki Makino. Wilson was determined to convince them that his League was the only answer to Europe’s problems as well as the world’s.

“The Star of Bethlehem Rising Again”

Wilson was the people’s hero as he toured Europe prior to the Peace Conference in Paris. As Herbert Hoover later wrote: “He was received everywhere with almost religious fervor . . . The ovations were greater than had ever come before to a mortal man.” His peace initiative and vision had stirred the masses. During his tour of Italy, the crowds shouted, “Viva Wilson, God of Peace.” Almost supernatural powers were attributed to him. Hoover adds: “To them, no such man of moral and political power and no such an evangel of peace had appeared since Christ preached the Sermon on the Mount. . . . It was the star of Bethlehem rising again.”

Evidently Wilson believed with evangelistic fervor in his mission to establish peace on earth. Writer Charles L. Mee states: “At one point he amazed Lloyd George and Clemenceau by explaining how the league would establish a brotherhood of man where Christianity had not been able to do so. ‘Why,’ Lloyd George recalled Wilson as saying, ‘has Jesus Christ so far not succeeded in inducing the world to follow His teachings in these matters? It is because He taught the ideal without devising any practical means of attaining it. That is the reason why I am proposing a practical scheme to carry out His aims.’”​—The End of Order, Versailles 1919.

Certainly, Wilson got encouragement from many quarters. The U.S. secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, greeted the publication of the draft of the Covenant of the League of Nations with this eulogy: “The draft of the League of Peace is almost as simple as one of the Parables of Jesus and almost as illuminating and as uplifting. It is time for church bells to peal, for preachers to fall upon their knees, for statesmen to rejoice, and for the angels to sing, ‘Glory to God in the Highest!’”

The League and the Catholic Church

Did preachers fall on their knees? Some were certainly quick to hail the League as God’s answer to mankind’s problems. Pope Benedict XV had nearly upstaged Wilson in August 1917 when, according to writer John Dos Passos, he appealed to the warring nations “to negotiate a peace without victory, on approximately the terms laid down in Woodrow Wilson’s speeches before America’s entrance into the war.” However, Wilson felt he was too busy waging war to pay attention to the pope​—that is, until he received a significant letter from Colonel House, his personal aide. It stated:

“I am so impressed with the importance of the situation that I am troubling you again . . . I believe that you have an opportunity to take the peace negotiations out of the hands of the Pope and hold them in your own.”

Wilson took swift action to make sure that he did not lose the initiative. The League of Nations vision was his, not the pope’s. And he was the man to see it through.

Nevertheless, the Catholic Church lent its support to the League. Cardinal Bourne, the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster until the end of 1934, stated: “Remember that the League of Nations, whatever imperfections it may have, is carrying out the desire of the Catholic Church for Peace, and carrying out the wishes of our Holy Father, the Pope.”

“The League of Nations Is Rooted in the Gospel”

The Protestant clergy were not reticent in their support of the League either. The New York Times for January 11, 1920, reported: “The London church bells this evening have been pealing in celebration of the conclusion of peace with Germany and the official coming into existence of the League of Nations.”

A booklet published in England under the title The Christian Church and the League of Nations stated: “The Christian Church in Great Britain supports the League of Nations. Here is an Affirmation made by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, thirty-five English Diocesan Bishops, the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, and official representatives of all the Free Churches in England:

“We are convinced:

“(1) That God at this time is calling the nations of the world to learn to live as one family;

“(2) That the machinery of international cooperation provided by the League of Nations . . . affords the best available means of applying the principles of the Gospel of Christ to stop war, to provide justice, and to organise peace.”

Prior to the above, in December of 1918, the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America issued a declaration that said in part: “As Christians we urge the establishment of a League of Free Nations at the coming Peace Conference. Such a League is not a mere political expedient; it is rather the political expression of the Kingdom of God on earth.” (Italics ours.) It then went on to say: “The Church has much to give and much to gain. It can give a powerful sanction by imparting to the new international order something of the prophetic glory of the Kingdom of God. . . . The League of Nations is rooted in the Gospel.”

If the League was truly “rooted in the Gospel” and was truly an “expression of the Kingdom of God,” then the League’s fate was going to reflect on both the Gospel and the Kingdom. Was Wilson presumptuous in believing that he was God’s instrument to bring permanent peace to the nations? And an even more fundamental question is, Did the League of Nations really have God’s backing?

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Opposing Sides in Europe​—World War I (1914-18)

Central Powers Allied Powers

Germany Great Britain

Austria-Hungary France

Bulgaria Russia (until 1917)

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Wilson was especially popular in Europe

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U.S. National Archives