Free The Illusion of Victory by Thomas Fleming Page A

with a burgeoning opinion among his liberal American admirers that it would be a mistake for him to mingle in the gritty details of peacemaking. Better for him to stay in Washington, above the battle, and let Colonel House and others do the negotiating.
    Even before the armistice, Frank Cobb of the World sent a long memorandum to House, elaborating on this argument. Wilson would have only one vote at the peace conference, Cobb warned. His ability to appeal to the conscience of America and the world would be fatally weakened, if not destroyed. It would be far better if Wilson fought on his “home ground,” Washington.“Diplomatic Europe is enemy soil to him.” Cobb said he had come to Europe assuming that Wilson should attend the peace conference. A sojourn in Paris had changed his mind.
    Even more dismaying for Wilson was the discovery that Colonel House shared this opinion. In a cable on November 14, House told the president, “Americans here . . . are practically unanimous in the belief that it would be unwise for you to sit in the Peace Conference.” Instead of arguing against this assertion, House reiterated Clemenceau’s opposition and added,“The same feeling prevails in England.” House would only approve Wilson’s coming to Europe to participate in a “preliminary conference,” in which the general terms of the peace treaty would be worked out. 2
    Wilson was infuriated. He cabled House that this idea “upsets every plan we [have] made.” the “we” was not a reference to House—Wilson was almost certainly referring to Edith Galt Wilson, who not only urged him to go, but had persuaded the president to take her with him. Wilson dismissed the head-of-state argument, calling it “a way of pocketing me.” He suspected the British and French leaders wanted to exclude him from the conference “for fear I might . . . lead the weaker nations against them.” growing more exercised with every word, Wilson stormed,“It is universally expected and generally desired here that I should attend the conference.” 3
    This was one more example of Wilson’s tendency to ignore political realities. He had just gambled his prestige as America’s political leader in the congressional elections and had lost. The results were a stunning refutation of his claim that American voters “universally expected and generally desired” him to attend the peace conference. In fact, there were grave reservations among many people about his going to Europe at all.
    During World War II, Americans grew used to having their presidents fly around the world to summit conferences. In 1918, however, people looked askance on the president’s leaving the country for any reason. William Howard Taft abandoned his habit of vacationing in Canada when he became president. President McKinley had considered a tour of Europe after the Spanish-American War, but dropped the idea. The U.S. Constitution did not (and still does not) provide for any transfer of power to the vice president when the president leaves the country. Many people feared there would be no supreme authority in a national emergency. Lord Bryce, before he became the purveyor of fake atrocities, had concluded from his popular study of the American Constitution that it seemed “impossible for the president to leave the U.S.” 4
    The day after the armistice, Secretary of State Lansing urged Wilson not to go. The president dismissed the advice with a look that spoke “volumes,” the secretary later glumly noted in his diary. In the White House, Joe Tumulty could muster very little enthusiasm for Wilson’s decision, especially when he was told the president was leaving him behind. In 1918, there was no large White House staff to handle the thousand and one details of the executive office. Almost single-handedly, Tumulty would have to worry about the demoralization of a Democratic Party that had just lost control of both houses of Congress, the hostility of the Republican-controlled