World War I | The Eleventh Hour | 4
41:39 Share

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's August 30th, 1918, and you're America's top military commander in Europe at your new headquarters near Saint-Miel in northeastern France. You're leaning over a table in the middle of the room, examining a large map.

The U.S. joined the war 16 months ago, but only now do you have enough soldiers and arms to operate as an independent army, rather than merely as units supporting your allies. Your new independent forces are called the First Army, and you're eager to deploy them in what will be the first U.S.-led offensive of the war.

On the map, you see the target, a triangle of German-held land around Saint-Miel that juts out into French territory. You plan to attack from two sides, take the territory, then push on to seize control of the city of Metz. But as you study the map, you're interrupted by the arrival of Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces and head of the French army.

Field Marshal, this is unexpected. What can I do for you? I came to tell you that we're calling off the offensive. Why? The British have now pushed the Germans back to their last line of defense at the Hindenburg Line, making them vulnerable. We're going to launch an assault to break their defenses, and we need your troops to join us. But we're ready to march on Metz, as we agreed. That was before the British advance. We now have a chance to end the war, and we need to seize it.

Well, what exactly do you have in mind? Your forces will still take San Miel as planned, but instead of pushing on to Metz, you will move to support the British attack.

"'You say nothing, trying to quash your fury at this sudden departure from the plan. But Foch isn't done yet. And one more thing. The scale of this offensive is beyond the experience of your army. Therefore, I intend to place several of your divisions under French command.' "'No, I will not allow that.' "'Are you refusing to take part in the Allied offensive?' "'We will take part, but only with the U.S. troops under my command, and in no other way.'

Our willingness to serve under Allied command in the spring was a temporary response to a crisis, a crisis that has since passed.

You know Foch can't argue with his line of reasoning. Since the failure of Germany's spring offensive, the tide of the war has turned in the Allies' favor. And the influx of new U.S. troops has left the enemy significantly outnumbered, just as you'd hoped. I see. Well, very well. But in that case, after you take Saint-Miel, we need your forces to lead the offensive at Meuse-Argonne. And we need them there and ready to attack by September 23rd. I hope your men are up to it. They are.

Foch salutes and leaves you to your maps. You have a lot of work to do. Your plans for the attack on Saint-Miel need to be adjusted, and you have just 23 days to plan a larger offensive involving more than a million U.S. soldiers. It's an enormous task, but you're determined to prove to Foch and the world that America is ready to rise to the challenge.

It's how you internet. Check availability today.

Price after $10 monthly bill credit while you maintain a nationally available postpaid voice line. Qualifying credit required. Regulatory fees included for qualified accounts. Plus $5 per month without auto pay. Debit or bank account required. American History Tellers is sponsored by Shell. America may not have invented the automobile. That was probably the Germans.

But we made them our own. The Model T gave us the assembly line, the interstate highway system gave us road trips, and Hollywood gave us 11 Fast and Furious movies. And if you love your car, fill up with Shell V-Power Nitro Plus Premium Gasoline to remove up to 100% of performance-robbing deposits with continuous use in gasoline direct injection engines. Lower-grade fuels can leave deposits that build up over time and degrade your engine's performance. Shell V-Power Nitro Plus is the answer.

Fuel up at Shell. Download the Shell app to find a station today. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story. ♪♪

On September 12, 1918, General John Pershing sent the U.S. First Army into battle at Saint-Miel in northeastern France. It was the first American-led offensive of World War I and marked a turning point for a nation that began the conflict as a minor military player.

At this Battle of Saint-Miel, 216,000 Americans joined 48,000 French soldiers to attack German positions along a 40-mile section of the Western Front. Since late 1914, this German position had been a thorn in the side of the Allied forces. But after four days of fighting, the American-led offensive succeeded.

With Saint-Miel secured, Pershing's troops pushed north to join the larger Meuse-Argonne offensive, where they hoped to break the Hindenburg Line, Germany's last line of defense, one that had long been beyond the reach of the Allied forces.

But as the end of the war neared, the question of what the peace would look like remained. President Woodrow Wilson saw peace talks as an opportunity to strengthen American power and create an assembly of the world's nations to prevent future wars. But he would soon find himself at odds with both his wartime allies and opponents at home. This is Episode 4 in our four-part series on World War I, The Eleventh Hour.

On September 26, 1918, two weeks after the Battle of Saint-Miel, General John Pershing led the U.S. Army in the biggest military operation in the nation's history. At 2.30 a.m., the 2,700 artillery guns under his command began bombarding a 24-mile front line that stretched from the Argonne Forest to the Meuse River of northern France.

For three hours, U.S. artillery pounded the German positions, crushing fortifications, obliterating defenses, and blasting apart anything that could block the advance of the million-strong army under Pershing's command. Similar scenes were playing out across the Western Front as the U.S. and Allied powers launched a massive assault designed to decisively break Germany's defenses and end the war.

Three days after the fighting began, the British and French led an attack on German positions at Saint-Quentin, approximately 100 miles northwest of the Meuse-Argonne region. After three hours of fierce combat, Allied troops, including Americans from the 30th Division, successfully breached the Hindenburg Line. At the very same time, the Allies scored another victory on the Macedonian front in southeastern Europe when Germany's ally Bulgaria agreed to a ceasefire.

Bulgaria's capitulation raised doubts about whether Germany's remaining allies, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, would carry on fighting. And no one held more of these doubts than Erich Ludendorff, Germany's top military strategist who was crushed by the rush of setbacks. To him, it seemed as if all was lost.

So on October 1, 1918, a despondent Ludendorff appeared at the German Army's command center in the Belgian town of Spa to speak to his general staff. The optimism he felt during the spring offensive was long gone. Now he could only see defeat.

He told his officers there was no hope. The war was all but lost. And then he revealed that he and the head of the German army, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, had secured permission from Kaiser Wilhelm II to seek peace. All Germany could hope for now was to negotiate an armistice before their enemies reached German soil and more Germans died.

Demoralized by their leader's bleak assessment, the officers under Ludendorff's command held hands and wept as they absorbed the news that for them, the war would end in defeat. The news also shocked the German public. Their leaders had continued to paint a rosy picture of the war, and the public's morale had remained high, despite severe food shortages and loss of life. But as word spread that Ludendorff believed there was no hope of victory, the nation's morale collapsed.

Then, on October 3, 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II appointed Prince Maximilian von Baden as the new Chancellor of Germany and entrusted him with running the government. Prince Maximilian was a moderate who had opposed the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare that brought the United States into the war. Now, with Germany facing defeat, the Kaiser hoped Prince Maximilian's temperate reputation would help Germany secure peace on more favorable terms.

And on the very same night he became Chancellor, Prince Maximilian cabled President Woodrow Wilson, asking for a ceasefire and a peace based on the President's 14-point plan for a post-war world.

But by the time Wilson and the Allies were ready to set out their conditions for an armistice, the Allied advance stalled. The Allies had broken the Hindenburg Line, but as the German army retreated, they destroyed roads and bridges, making it hard for the Allied armies to follow. The Allies also found their supply chains couldn't keep up with the speed of the advances. So with the Allied advance slowing, Ludendorff began to believe that German defeat might not be inevitable after all.

Still, it was too late. Less than two weeks later, on October 14th, Austria-Hungary also asked for an armistice based on Wilson's 14 points, and the Ottoman Empire asked the British for similar terms.

Shortly after that, on October 23rd, President Wilson informed Germany that the U.S. and the Allies would agree to negotiate for peace, but only on terms that would make it impossible for Germany to resume hostilities, terms including withdrawing German troops from all the territory they occupied and the abdication of the Kaiser.

Ludendorff was outraged. He saw these terms as nothing less than a demand for unconditional surrender, and with his renewed hope, lobbied the Kaiser to reject the offer. But German Chancellor Prince Maximilian wasn't about to let Ludendorff prolong the fighting. He convinced the Kaiser to fire Ludendorff, and then cabled Washington to say Germany wanted to make a deal.

By then, the German nation was in turmoil. On October 29th, sailors stationed at the German port of Kiel mutinied, refusing to set sail for a final battle with the Royal Navy. And soon, German sailors in other ports took up arms and refused to fight for the Kaiser as well. Their mutiny quickly spiraled into an armed insurrection. In industrial cities, soldiers and workers formed socialist councils to take control. The German state of Bavaria declared itself a socialist republic.

And it seemed as if Germany was about to follow Russia into a socialist revolution, a scenario the Allies had feared. Meanwhile, in the Belgium town of Spa, the Kaiser agonized over whether to abdicate, but Prince Maximilian saved him the trouble of making a decision. Maximilian announced that the monarchy was to be abolished, and he resigned the chancellorship and handed control of the new German Republic to a provisional government.

But just before he resigned, Prince Maximilian dispatched an envoy to France to negotiate an armistice with the Allied powers. German politician Matthias Erzberger headed to the Forest of Compiègne in northern France to negotiate with Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the Supreme Allied Commander and head of the French army.

On November 8, 1918, Erzberger boarded the railroad dining car that had been converted into a conference room for the negotiations. Foch started the talks by setting stiff terms, and as the list of demands piled up, Erzberger's despair grew. First, the Allies would not guarantee a peace based on Wilson's 14 points.

Wilson's call for freedom of passage in international waters was out of the question, and Germany would be expected to pay compensation for the Allied lives lost and the property damage in the war. Next, Foch outlined the plan to restore the Allies' lost territory. Germany would hand back the land it took from Belgium and France, and it would also move its troops east of the Rhine, surrender in East Africa, and withdraw from the lands that had been ceded to them by Russia.

Meanwhile, the British naval blockade would remain in force until peace terms were agreed. Then Foch delivered one last blow. If Erzberger did not accept these terms within 72 hours, the offer of an armistice would be withdrawn and the war would continue.

Erzberger knew he had little chance of winning significant concessions and that the US and allies wanted Germany's total surrender. He also knew that the US now had 42 divisions in France, leaving Germany's army greatly outnumbered. To refuse these terms would risk oblivion for Germany. So on November 11th, 1918, Erzberger prepared to sign a deal to end the fighting. But even as the diplomats edged toward a ceasefire, the war raged on.

Imagine it's just before dawn on November 11th, 1918, and you're a U.S. Army major near the west bank of the Meuse River in northern France, close to the Belgian border. You're creeping through the thick fog shrouding no man's land, the thin stretch of mud and bodies that separates the two opposing forces. Around you, soldiers under your command are also advancing toward the river. A tall Marine next to you whispers, "'Major, why are we advancing?'

"'I hear they're about to agree to a peace deal. Our orders are to cross the river and take out the German positions. That's what we'll do. Until there is a peace, there is no peace. Understood, Marine?' "'Yes, sir.' You reach a shaky bridge that an advanced team of engineers quickly built out of pontoons. The fog hides the German machine-gun nests and fortifications you know are waiting on the other side. The Marine next to you looks worried. "'Sir, that bridge doesn't look like it'll hold.' "'It'll hold. Prepare to cross.'

You look back in the direction you came from, hoping that a runner will come charging out of the mist with news of the armistice, but no one appears. So you turn back to the bridge and blow your whistle to signal your troops to advance. You and the other marines rush onto the makeshift bridge. As you and your men hurry across, you hear the German machine guns open up. Marines ahead of you begin falling into the water.

But against all odds, you and the tall marine next to you make it to the other side and find cover below a bluff. You glance back and see someone else emerge from the fog and onto the bridge. It's a runner, scurrying across the wobbling pontoons, ducking as shots ring out around him, but he makes it over the bridge and skids to a halt.

Major, sir. Urgent message from headquarters. All right, speak, man. The armistice is signed and takes effect at 11 o'clock this morning. Any instructions on what to do until then? No, sir. You see the tall marine looking at you, hoping that you'll order a retreat. But you don't have a choice. Until the clock strikes 11, the war is not over, and your orders are to advance on the German lines. All right, then we fight on. Get up. Let's take out those machine gun nests.

The two marines exchange horrified glances. "In only four hours time, the great war will be over, but there's no guarantee any of you will be around to enjoy the peace."

Just after 5 a.m. on November 11, 1918, Germany's negotiator Matthias Erzberger signed an armistice agreeing to end the fighting and paving the way for a peace deal. But the ceasefire wouldn't take effect until 11 a.m. that day, so soldiers on both sides had no choice but to continue to fight. And on the day the armistice was signed, 1,100 American troops were killed and wounded.

Those casualties added to the 120,000 U.S. soldiers who were killed or wounded during the Meuse-Argonne offensive alone, which remains the deadliest military campaign in U.S. history.

But then, finally, at 11 a.m., the fighting stopped, and the war that had lasted more than four years and left approximately 40 million people dead or wounded was over. In the course of the conflict, an estimated 8.5 million soldiers and military personnel died from injuries or disease alone. Another 21 million soldiers had been wounded, though American military casualties accounted for around 320,000, or less than 1% of the total.

An estimated 13 million civilians had also perished. After such unimaginable devastation, the news of the armistice was greeted with celebrations on the streets of American cities and in the trenches of Western Europe. In Washington, D.C., President Wilson headed to Congress to declare that everything for which America fought has been accomplished.

But now that the war was over, the world's attention turned to peace. A peace that the American president intended to shape. But Wilson was about to find out that securing his desired outcome would be the toughest battle yet.

American History Tellers is sponsored by Audible. Do you remember radio dramas, The Shadow, Orson Welles' War of the Worlds? With just a few sound effects, they could transport you anywhere. That's the power of listening, a direct line to your imagination. And that's why Audible is such a great place to let your imagination soar.

When you listen, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, new ways of thinking. There's more to imagine when you listen. One book that opened up whole new worlds of imagination for me was Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction classic, Rendezvous with Rama.

As an Audible member, you choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash tellers or text tellers to 500-500. That's audible.com slash tellers or text tellers to 500-500.

Hey, Prime members, have you heard you can listen to your favorite podcasts ad-free? That's good news. With Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad-free top podcasts included with your Prime membership. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to amazon.com slash ad-free podcasts. That's amazon.com slash ad-free podcasts to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads.

On November 7, 1918, as German representatives headed to a railroad car in northern France to negotiate an armistice, America was in the midst of an influenza pandemic that had been ravaging the globe. While the exact origins remain unknown, the first reported cases of the flu had shown up in Kansas earlier that year.

Doctors at the Camp Funston Army Training Camp recorded men falling ill with the flu in January 1918. The camp was crowded with thousands of drafted men from across the country, and the virus swept through at a rapid pace. Within only two weeks, the camp's doctors were dealing with 1,100 hospitalized soldiers and thousands more bedridden in the barracks.

For the patients affected worst, the disease began like a standard flu, but then rapidly morphed into pneumonia. Afflicted soldiers found themselves struggling to breathe. Some turned blue as their lungs couldn't absorb enough oxygen. In the worst cases, people went from healthy to dead within only hours.

Yet the outbreak didn't make headlines. President Woodrow Wilson's administration had imposed widespread censorship on the U.S. press, and the government's Committee for Public Information was pushing newspapers to print only positive news. Additionally, a new Sedition Act threatened 20 years in prison for saying or writing anything that could be deemed as undermining the war effort, which might include reporting on the outbreak of a deadly disease among conscripted soldiers.

So as the virus spread, most Americans were unaware of the worsening public health crisis. And the illness soon escaped the confines of Camp Funston in Kansas, infecting the wider population and traveling with U.S. troops to Europe, where the virus thrived amid the unhygienic conditions of the trenches and prisoner-of-war camps.

Eventually, the pandemic reached Spain, and news of the outbreak there eventually filtered back to America, where the newspapers began reporting on the pandemic and calling it the Spanish flu.

And by September 1918, the pandemic was front of mind for much of the public. At one Army training camp near Boston, it killed 100 people in a single day. Bodies piled up as cities ran out of coffins. But with a lack of vaccine technology and poor understanding of the spread of viruses, little could be done beyond social distancing. So in the space of just 12 months, the so-called Spanish flu killed 670,000 Americans.

Worldwide, it claimed an estimated 50 million lives, making it deadlier than the war. But while the pandemic created social chaos, it also wreaked havoc with the upcoming election. Public rallies and speeches were canceled. Candidates were left to spread their message via mailings and newspapers. And President Wilson was unsettled, knowing that these congressional elections were crucial to his vision for the future.

Wilson needed his fellow Democrats to win a majority in the midterms in order to ensure his plan for the post-war world moved ahead. Any peace deal he agreed to would need backing from Congress, and Republican majority could jeopardize it.

Wilson began the campaign arguing that because the nation was at war, politics as usual should be suspended. But in the final month of the campaign, he became more aggressive. He accused the Republicans of being unpatriotic, claiming voting for Republicans would please the Kaiser, and arguing that voting Democrat was essential to national security.

Henry Cabot Lodge, the Republican leader in the Senate, led his party's response by taking aim at Wilson's 14-point plan for peace. In particular, he singled out Wilson's plan to create a League of Nations, a world council to settle global disputes and maintain the peace. Lodge argued that this League would undermine the United States' ability to make its own choices, and this proved to be a winning argument.

Republicans emerged on Election Day with majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. So now Wilson would have to win over Lodge and his fellow Republicans to get a peace treaty with Germany approved. But first, Wilson still had to negotiate the terms of the peace with the other Allied countries.

In January 1919, Wilson arrived in Versailles, on the outskirts of Paris, for the peace conference. He was accompanied by his friend and advisor, Edward House, as well as the Secretary of State, Robert Lansing. Conspicuously absent was his Republican rival, Senate Majority Leader Henry Cabot Lodge, head of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee. The Democrats may have lost control of the Senate to the Republicans, but Wilson felt no need to involve his political opponents in the peace negotiations.

But merely Wilson's presence at these negotiations in person was controversial in itself. No U.S. president had ever left the country while in office before. But Wilson insisted it was the right thing to do. He had sent thousands of young men to their deaths and believed he owed it to them to secure a peace that would justify their sacrifice. Wilson also believed he was the only man who could successfully negotiate a peace that would last, and he would do so with a bold plan.

Wilson wanted to do nothing less than reshape the world, to create a new world order in which the U.S. would be dominant. He also believed that he was the only leader at the talks with moral authority, because in his view, all the European powers shared the blame for the war, and only America could claim the high ground, having fought in order to secure peace rather than conquest.

But it wasn't just Wilson's audacious plan that would make these negotiations difficult. The peace talks were set to be long and complicated. Germany and their former allies had been excluded, with the expectation that the losing side would have to sign what they were given.

But Russia was not invited either. After Vladimir Lenin's socialist Bolsheviks had seized power in the October Revolution, Russia had descended into civil war and the Allies supported those opposed to Lenin. President Wilson had also severed diplomatic ties with Russia after the Bolsheviks refused to honor Russia's debts to the U.S.

But while Russia and the Central Powers were absent, nearly 30 other countries with some connection to the Allied cause were in attendance, and every one of them hoped to leave the talks with some kind of prize for their contribution. Regardless, though, it was clear from the outset that the victorious Allies, the U.S., Britain, France, Japan, and Italy would dominate the decision-making, though their goals did not always align.

Wilson was adamant he wanted a peace based on his 14 points, of which he considered the League of Nations to be the most important. The other Allied countries were supportive of the League, but felt there were far more crucial questions to settle. French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau's priority was to hobble Germany so they could no longer pose a military threat to the countries on their borders. Clemenceau was a wily 77-year-old statesman who would spend most of the talks rolling his eyes at Wilson's idealism.

Clemenceau had endured two German invasions of his country in his lifetime, and now with much of northern France in ruins, he wanted the German military defanged and the German government to pay huge sums in reparations. But that was at odds with Wilson's outlook. The American president wanted a peace based on compromise and a strong Germany that could stop socialist revolutions spreading west from Russia.

But Britain's wisecracking Prime Minister David Lloyd George backed France's call for reparations and had just won an election by promising to punish Germany. But he also told Wilson that there was danger in treating Germany too harshly. This double talk didn't sit well with Wilson, who saw the British Prime Minister as devoid of principle, a man who would always put political expediency first.

And, of course, Lloyd George did have his own agenda. First, he wanted to strike down Wilson's call for freedom of the seas. Britain still had the world's strongest navy, and it wasn't about to agree to restrict its own sea power. Next, he wanted Wilson to agree that his call for ethnic self-determination did not extend to Ireland or Britain's colonial possessions, fearing it would encourage them to declare independence. And, ultimately, Lloyd George hoped to add former German and Ottoman territory to the British Empire.

Stuck in between Lloyd George and Wilson, French leader Clemenceau found both of the other men irritating, describing the negotiations as like being sat between Napoleon and Jesus Christ.

But while the U.S., France, and Britain's leaders sniped at one another, Japan's delegation arrived in Versailles full of hope, believing they had finally been invited to sit with the major imperial powers who they had long aspired to join. Japan had already been promised some of Germany's colonies in Asia, but they were worried that Wilson's principle of national self-determination might be applied to Korea, which the Japanese had conquered in 1910.

Italy came to the talks with their own demands, including one that would put it totally at odds with Wilson's grand vision for a post-war world.

When Italy agreed to join the Allies in 1915, Britain, France, and Russia promised in a secret treaty that they would be given the Austro-Hungarian port of Fiume once the war was won. But Wilson had declared in his 14 points that he wanted no more secret treaties between nations. That was about to put the President on a collision course with the Italian Prime Minister.

Imagine it's April 1919, and you're an advisor to President Woodrow Wilson. The Paris Peace Conference is now in its fourth month, and you and Wilson have just returned to the president's residence in the city. You've both spent the afternoon arguing with the Italian prime minister about the future of Hume, an Austro-Hungarian port on the Adriatic Sea. Wilson lowers himself into an armchair and rubs his temples. These talks are giving me a headache.

"'What is it with Italy and Fiume? The place is majority Croat, not Italian.' "'Well, agreed, sir. The Italian's insistence that it be handed over as promised seems to have little to do with logic and much more with emotion.' "'Well, there's certainly been emotion on display today. I find it astonishing that the Italian Prime Minister actually cried in front of us.' "'Well, it was good of you to comfort him. I believe he appreciated it. But I wonder if we are pushing Italy too far?'

Maybe we should consider letting them have Hume. No, that would make a mockery of the 14 points. I have been very clear about my belief in the right to self-determination and my opposition to secret treaties.

"'Yes, I accept that, sir, but Italy has lost around a half a million soldiers, a truly devastating number. They apparently only entered the war with the understanding that they would receive Fiume if we won. It's no surprise that the Italian Prime Minister is warning that there could be disorder in Italy if he fails to secure the port. Well, I sympathize with his political challenges, but that doesn't mean we're going to honor the terms of a secret treaty that should never have been made in the first place. Yes, but the Italians are threatening to walk away. That could become a problem.'

Well, we'll need to do something to stop them. Any thoughts? We could threaten to withdraw the financial aid we've been giving them. We could argue that their exit would free us of our obligations to support them. That would certainly make them think twice. President Wilson ponders your suggestion, and after a moment he nods. Well, it's worth trying. Let's hope it's enough to get them to back down.

You see the weariness in the president's eyes. You know these talks have become more complex than any of you anticipated, and the president's already seeded ground on almost all of his original 14 points. But you also know what's at stake. It's not just the president's reputation on the line. It's the United States' status in the new world order.

Despite the Italian Prime Minister's pleas, Italy did not receive Fiume. Today, it remains in Croatia and is called Rijeka. But Italian fascist Benito Mussolini seized on the Italian Prime Minister's failure to secure Fiume to win political support by claiming Italy was betrayed by the Allies, leading to Mussolini's eventual rise to power in 1922.

So it was only after six months of talks that the peace conference finally agreed on Germany's future. Despite Germany's hope for terms of peace as envisioned by Wilson's 14 points, instead, the treaty required Germany to pay reparations of $5 billion, $89 billion today. And that was just a down payment to tide over the Allies until the final total was calculated. Germany would also have to accept major restrictions on their military and an abolition of their navy.

They also had to accept the occupation of the Rhineland, the portion of Germany that lay on the border of Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. For the next 15 years, Allied troops would be stationed there to assure the security of those countries against another German invasion.

Also, according to the terms of peace, Belgium would regain independence, France would take back any land it lost to Germany since 1871, and the territory Germany received from Russia would be carved up and used to establish Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia as independent nations. In a final blow, Germany's overseas colonies would all be divided among the Allied powers.

So, with no other choice, on June 28, 1919, Germany accepted all terms and signed the Treaty of Versailles. For Erich Ludendorff and other former German military leaders, this was a humiliation. But rather than accept any fault on their part, they claimed that Germany was denied victory because it was betrayed by enemies within, primarily Jews and socialists.

Their stab-in-the-back conspiracy theory was embraced by the German far right and in the coming years would become central to the beliefs of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party. And in the years that followed, Germany's enormous reparations bill led to runaway inflation of more than 300% a month. The suffering wrought by this economic catastrophe also fueled the rise of the far right in Germany.

But while Ludendorff's rhetoric and the devastating reparations began sowing the seeds for another horrific war, President Wilson headed home feeling upbeat. Though he had conceded on most of his 14 points, the one he prized most had survived. In addition to the Treaty of Versailles, the peace conference had agreed to form the League of Nations.

President Wilson hoped it would secure peace and justice across the globe. But while he had sold that dream to the world, he now needed to sell it to his own people. That would prove much harder than anticipated.

American History Tellers is sponsored by Amica Insurance. Amica knows how important it is to protect your biggest assets. Whether it's auto, home, or life insurance, Amica has policies to fit your specific needs. And their friendly and knowledgeable representatives will work with you to make sure you have the right amount of coverage in place. As they say at Amica, empathy is our best policy. Go to Amica.com and get a quote today.

Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. And one thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home. Because with every fix, update, and renovation, it becomes a little more your own. So you need all your jobs done well. For nearly 30 years, Angie has helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter. From plumbing to electrical, roof repair to deck upgrades. So leave it to the pros who will get your jobs done well. Hi,

Hire high-quality, certified pros at Angie.com. On July 8, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson returned from the peace talks in Europe. As his train pulled into Washington, D.C.'s Union Station, a 10,000-strong crowd gathered to welcome him home.

The president then headed to the White House, where several hundred more people had also gathered. But not everyone was welcoming. Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was dead set against the U.S. joining the League of Nations. He believed Wilson's League would undermine American sovereignty, so he had already begun to rally his party against the Treaty of Versailles.

Lodge especially objected to Article 10, a section of the treaty that set out the basis for the League of Nations. Article 10 obliged member nations to defend the territorial integrity of other member states. This measure was designed to deter invasions, but it would also require America to go to war every time a League member was attacked. To Lodge and the Republicans, this was an unconstitutional threat to U.S. sovereignty.

By law, the United States could not go to war without the approval of Congress. So to agree to be obliged to go to war for other countries, with or without Congress's approval, would violate the U.S. Constitution. That left President Wilson with a serious problem. To get the treaty ratified, he needed the Senate to vote two-thirds in favor. And that would be impossible without Republican support.

But in the meantime, Wilson had done little to win Republican support. He and Lodge had a long and personal rivalry. They both thought themselves experts in world affairs and regarded the other as a pretender to the title. Lodge had also been an early and vocal supporter of preparing America to enter the war, while Wilson had tried to avoid it at all costs, even in the face of repeated German provocations.

And ultimately, Wilson's decision to exclude Lodge from the peace talks in Paris would prove a significant error. Lodge was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and it would have been politically wise to involve Lodge in the peace negotiations so that the Republicans would be more likely to support it. But the personal animosity between the men was too great.

So facing stiff opposition in Washington, Wilson decided to appeal directly to the American people. He thought if he could persuade the country to embrace the League of Nations, Republicans would back down.

So in September of 1919, the 62-year-old president went on tour to sell his dream. Over the course of 25 days, he planned to deliver 40 speeches in stadiums, opera houses, and tabernacles across the nation. The first stop was Columbus, Ohio on September 4th, with a tour ending in Louisville, Kentucky at the end of the month.

All things considered, the tour began well. In Billings, Montana, the families of soldiers who died in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive came to hear the president make his case. Tears streaming down his cheeks, Wilson spoke from the heart about how these soldiers' sacrifice would help deliver peace on Earth through the League of Nations.

In Tacoma, Seattle, and San Diego, huge crowds turned out to hear Wilson speak. It seemed like the barnstorming speeches were working. But as he crossed the country, divisions emerged. Imagine it's September 25th, 1919, and you're a citizen of Pueblo, Colorado, who spent the afternoon at the Pueblo Memorial Hall with thousands of other people listening to President Woodrow Wilson make the case for the League of Nations.

As the president ends his speech, you join the crowd in rising to your feet to applaud him. You came here as a doubter. Now you're converted. But then you notice your buddy.

He's standing with arms crossed. "'You okay?' "'No, I'm not. That man's about to sell America down the river. I've voted Democrat all my life, but on this, the Republicans are right. Were you listening to the same speech I did? He made it clear that we'd have a veto. The League couldn't do anything unless we and every other nation in it agreed. And who decides whether we agreed? It's not the people, it's not the Congress. This will invest too much power in the President. Well, it's a small price to pay to end war.'

Maybe you weren't the one listening. Wilson said there were no guarantees, and if war does break out again, this treaty requires us, requires us to defend the territory of other countries. I don't want my son sent into battle to protect some foreign king's land. Oh, you're twisting his words. He said it was our best shot at preventing more wars. How many died in this one alone? Ah, so many, so many. No one even knows for sure. If the League can keep war at bay, then it's good for the world and good for America.

You and your friend stare at each other crossly for a moment. You don't understand how you could both listen to the same words and hear them so differently. So as you turn back to the stage, you're suddenly unsure whether the president can win over critics like your friend. You realize he's still got a difficult task ahead.

On September 25, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson's tour arrived in Pueblo, Colorado. By now, the constant travel was taking a toll on the president. He felt exhausted and was getting severe headaches. Fatigued, he decided to address the crowd for only a few minutes.

But when he stepped onto stage, the entire auditorium rose to their feet and cheered nonstop. Re-energized by this welcome, Wilson delivered a rousing speech and even found the energy to joke that the reporters following him around the country must be pretty sick of his speeches by now.

But that night on the train to his next stop in Wichita, Kansas, the worn-out president found himself stricken by a headache so intense he couldn't work, read, or sleep. It was clear the president couldn't continue. So his team canceled the rest of the tour and rushed him back to Washington. On October 2, 1919, three days after returning to the Capitol, Wilson suffered a near-fatal stroke that left him bedridden, paralyzed down one side, and unable to talk.

Unbeknownst to nearly everyone, the First Lady Edith Wilson temporarily stepped in to perform many of Wilson's presidential duties. She signed his name on documents, screened his paperwork, and hid his frail condition from the outside world. Slowly, Wilson improved and regained some speech and movement, but the president's stroke left him struggling to finish the job of getting the Senate to back the peace treaty and the League of Nations.

In Washington, the discussion on these topics was at a standstill. Wilson refused to compromise, telling advisers from his sickbed that Henry Cabot Lodge should be the one to back down. And on November 19, 1919, the Senate finally gathered to debate the Treaty of Versailles.

The 10-hour deliberations ended with a 53-38 vote against the treaty. It was the first time the U.S. Senate had refused to ratify a peace treaty. And on March 20, 1920, the Senate held a second vote and rejected it again, 49-35.

These decisions left the U.S. in an awkward position. President Wilson had persuaded the wider world to join the League of Nations, but he couldn't win over his own people. And since the Treaty of Versailles had not been approved, America was still formally at war with Germany. The Armistice Agreement ensured the fighting wouldn't resume, but it would take until 1921 before a bilateral peace treaty between Germany and America was finally approved.

This was nearly a year after the League of Nations moved on without the U.S. On November 15, 1920, the League met for the first time. In attendance were more than 42 nations representing half of the world's population. But without the U.S. present, it was a weakened body from the beginning. With Wilson's dream of joining the League of Nations dashed, the U.S. turned its attention to taking stock of the impact of the conflict at home and found that the nation had been transformed by the war.

The U.S. was now a major military power, having drastically increased their weaponry and fighting force. And social change had transformed American life. American women had finally won the right to vote, alcohol was legally banned by the 18th Amendment, and African Americans had left the South in unprecedented numbers, heading for the North and Midwest.

The oppression of German culture and language as a result of war-fueled prejudices had reshaped American linguistic norms and social customs, and the Supreme Court had backed the right of the federal government to restrict free speech during wartime. But some of these wartime changes proved temporary. Wilson's propaganda agency, the Committee for Public Information, was shut down in August 1919.

and the American Protective League, the government-approved vigilante group that spied on fellow Americans, officially disbanded a few months after the armistice. But many local chapters continued reporting on potential subversives to the Department of Justice's General Intelligence Unit, laying the groundwork for the FBI.

Meanwhile, President Wilson's prized vision for diplomacy, the League of Nations, would continue on without American support, though it would eventually be disbanded in 1946 and reformed as the United Nations. And though it had been born out of the Great War with a lofty aim of preserving global peace, it would fail to prevent the next devastating global crisis to face America just a generation later, World War II.

From Wondery, this is Episode 4 of our series on World War I from American History Tellers. In our next episode, I speak with Christopher Capozola about how the United States trained a military force large enough to help defeat the Germans in World War I. Capozola is Professor of History at MIT and has written extensively about World War I and how it remains relevant today.

If you like American history tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

Senior Producer, Andy Herrmann.

Executive Producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman and Marshall Louis for Wondery.

What's up, guys? It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season. And let me tell you, it's too good. And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay? Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation. And I don't mean just friends. I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox. The list goes on. So follow, watch, and listen to Baby. This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.