No. 4 Woodrow Wilson - Paris
Dates: January 7-February 14, March 14-June 28, 1919 When President Wilson sailed for the Paris Peace Conference, he became the first U.S. President to visit Europe while in office. Few trips would make such a lasting impression on the world. Convened on January 18, 1919, the Paris Peace Conference was to determine the fate of World War I’s losers. There, Wilson was joined by David Lloyd George of Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France, and Vittorio Orlando of Italy. While Wilson famously and futilely made the pitch for a broad-minded internationalism (his 14 Points), the others sought to improve their security vis-à-vis a battered Germany. Wilson's lobbying particularly irked Clemenceau, who remarked of Wilson and his 14 Points that "God Almighty" had contented Himself with just 10. Though the treatment of German reparations soon returned to the world stage with a vengeance, other fateful decisions reverberate to this day. Wilson sought to make self-determination the rule for the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Yet the British and French would have none of it, erecting instead a mandate system – with a British mandate over Palestine and Iraq, and a French mandate over Syria and Lebanon. Having been unable to convince the French and British to sign onto his vision of international affairs, Wilson returned home to find still more skepticism from a Republican-controlled Congress, which torpedoed U.S. entry into the League of Nations. Lloyd George, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, Georges Clemenceau, Woodrow Wilson.
