Plain. This is another hoover sign. There are a lot of hoover street signs in europe. There arent any memorials to the countless volunteers, nor to the u. S. Delegates who did the grunt work. But i think in the centennial year its important to remember that the work that they did. Thank you. This weekend, on the cspan networks, politics, books and American History. On cspan saturday, at 6 00 p. M. Eastern, hurricane katrinas tenth anniversary with the live coverage from new orleans. Speakers include president bill clinton and Mitch Landrieu and sunday evening at 6 30 on our road to the white house coverage, speeches from Democratic CandidatesHillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders at the Democratic NationalCommittee Summer meeting in minneapolis. On c haspan2, book tv. Talking to the New York Times immigration reporter liz robins about his book undocumented tracing the journey to the top of the class of Princeton University and sunday at 1 15 p. M. , to mark the tenth anniversary of hurricane katrina, several programs about the storm and its aftermath featuring former mississippi governor barbour and Investigative Reporter green. On American History tv on cspan3, saturday afternoon, a few minutes past 2 00 p. M. , former astronaut don thomas discusses the history of space stations, comparing the development of programs since the early 1950s and looking at the future of International Space station efforts. And sunday at 4 00 p. M. On real america, appointment in tokyo is a 1945 u. S. Army signal corps film documenting the course of world war ii from the Japanese Invasion of the philippines and the death march through the surrender ceremony on september 2nd, 1945. Get our complete schedule at cspan. Org. Author and Oxford University history professor Margaret Macmillan talks about the second term of president Woodrow Wilson. Once the u. S. Entered the First World War, most of the efforts focused on Foreign Affairs and diplomacy. Professor macmillan talks about wilsons work and attempts for lasting peace through the 1919 paris peace conference and the league of nations. The university of virginias Miller Center hosted this 90minute program. Here in the United States, the great war is indelibly linked to the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Wilsons presidency was infused with irony and contradiction. Many of you may know that when he assumed office in 1913 his primary focus was intentionally going to be on domestic priorities. But he wound up spending most of the next eight years dealing with one foreign crises after another and most particularly world war i. When world war i erupted, wilson wanted to stay aloof. Keep the United States neutral. But he wound up embarking on a great crusade abroad to make the world safe for democracy. Wilson was the first president during his tenure in office to actually go abroad. He went to paris at the end of 1918 to engage in the negotiations at the paris peace conference. When he went abroad, he was heralded as a great savior in december of 1918. The crowds in paris and london and rome, all the great cities of europe he visited right before the peace conference, people came out in the hundreds of thousands to greet wilson. He was a real hero. By the time he wound up leaving paris in june of 1919, permanently, he was being scorned and ridiculed and personally he couldnt wait to leave. And when he return eed home, th league and the treaty seemed to have the majority support of the American People, at least judged by newspaper editorials and magazine editorials. But his foes in the u. S. Senate assailed wilsons handiwork, the treaty of versailles and particularly the league of nations and impaled him to go on a nationwide tour to drum up support for the league of the nations and the treaty during which; of course, he was strict within a terrible stroke and inka ka pass tated for the rest of his presidency. Even in his personal life, wilson was a very contradictory figure. To many, and if you see pictures of him, you think of him as a very prudest and austere person. But privately, wilson was charming and witty and very passionate. He was grief stricken when his first wife died in 1914. But very quickly, he struck up a romantic relationship with a washington socialite named ed it bolan and the joke around washington went like this. Quote, what do the new mrs. Wilson do when the president proposed . The answer, she fell out of bed with surprise. So, i lifted that anecdote actually from Margaret Macmillans wonderful book on peace making in 1919. And we are incredibly lucky to have Margaret Macmillan here with us today. She is truly one of the outstanding, one of the most distinguished historians of International Relations in the world. Shes a professor of history at oxford. And the warden, head of saipt Anthonys College at oxford. For those of you who have been at oxford, i went a year there about a decade ago and you know that it is one of perhaps arguably the best place in the world to study International Relations. Professor macmillan has written many books, shes written on british women in india, on nixons opening of relations with china, shes written on the uses and abuses of history. But most of all, shes known for her two wonderful volumes on world war i. The first that she wrote about a dozen years ago was on peace making in 1919. And the other which just appeared last year is about the origins of world war i, the war that ended peace. Thats the name of the book. And the former book, the one that in some ways will be the framework for todays lecture, i suspect, won id say a half dozen of the English Speaking worlds most prestigious prizes for the best book on International Relations. So, im incredibly happy to have Margaret Macmillan here with us. Shes going to talk for 40 or 45 minutes about wilson and war and peace and then ill engage her in a conversation for 10 or 15 minutes and then ill open it up for questions. Thank you. Id like to thank you very much for that kind introduction. I should warn you about that joke about mrs. Wilson. The man who made it was asked to leave washington. And id like to thank the Miller Center for inviting me. Its a great pleasure to be here and a great pleasure im ashamed to say, my first visit to university of virginia and charlottesville. Im going to talk today about Woodrow Wilson and war and peace. As you probably know, in 1913, just at the beginning of his first administration, he said to a friend it would be an irony of fate if my administration had to focus on foreign policy. It was not his interest. It was not something that he particularly wanted to have to do. And as professor leffler said, that was something that he ended up doing and i think we look at him because he presides over the United States at a time of great crisis in World History, the great world, the First World War and one of the great crises of modern history. It shattered much of the old european order. It had consequences which lasted for decades, perhaps into the 21st century and it affected much of the rest of the world, as well. But its also very important moment in American History and World History because its a time the United States is in the process of transforming its already great economic strength, its great strength as a nation which is finally coming together after the scars and trauma of the civil war and the United States begins transforming that strength into military strength. And when the war began, the United States was not a military power. In any sense of the word. It had a small nauf vi, although it was beginning to build up the naval strength. It had a very small army. It counted in military terms much less than a much smaller country such as italy an enwhat we see as a consequence of the First World War is the beginnings of the United States becoming a truly global power. I mean, those beginnings were there before 1914 but the period of 1914 and 1918 is as i say both a very important period in the history of the United States and a very important period in the history of the world. And so, it is important i think to look both at what was happening in the world, what was happening in the United States and at the personality of Woodrow Wilson himself because as president he not only expressed the feelings and aspirations of a great Many Americans, he came to power on that great surge of progressive sentiment, sentiment that was hoping to remake american society. But he also came to express something of american views as themselves and what they might be doing in the world and so i do think we have to Pay Attention to wilson the man but we have to put him firmly in the context of his times. His personality and his character and his many foibles would not have mattered if he was not in charge of an important nation and increasingly important nation at a pivotal time in history. Melvin said something about the personality of that man and i think he remains a puzzle to a lot of us, historians and others and will continue to remain a puzzle because like i a lot of human beings, he is contradictory. He was a great idealist and he was also someone who would act in an absolutely ruthless way f. You crossed him, he tentded to assume that you were his enemy. He was not good of accepting different points of view. His life is marked by a series of rejecting those that rejected him, stood against him. He could be extraordinarily rigid. He was a great orator. Perms one of the greatest among american president s but he also in private told some of the worst jokes i have ever seen. When he was in paris, he was surrounded by a group of, of course, people who were working for him and admiring him an used to write down the conversations in the evening and they wrote down his jokes and if you want to go, theres a huge collection of his papers and find really bag shaggy dog stories, go to the wilson papers. These are jokes i dont know how they stood them. Sort of jokes that go on for 20 moneys with an irishman, an a scotsman, you know that sort of joke. I wont bother to tell them. He was a sbe lukt july in office and a very good practical poll sirn. Anyone governor of new jersey knew about the practicalsties of policies. He was an effective governor. He liked discussing ideas and he could also be very rigid once he made his mind up. He would talk about politics and then no further discussion. He also had a confidence and who knows where it came from that he understood wetter than in other leaders what the people wanted and the people he said and he never really defined what the people was but it seemed to be those that agreed with him that spoke through him and he ran into trouble in europe and said to the elected leaders your people have spoken to me. I know what they want. I know what the people of the world want. The french ambassador in washington who observed him closely and i think quite liked him, said of him that he was a man who had he lived a couple of centuries ago would have been the greatest tyrant in the world because he does not seem to have the slightest conception that he can ever be wrong. And i think this is something that marks wilson. I mean, a very intelligent, interesting man and a man immovable and rinld. Now, when he came to office he had linlg of course Many Americans very strong sense of what the United States could do in the world. And i think part of his understanding and his views of what the United States could do in the world came from his own background. He was a devout presbyterian. He remained a believer all his life and i think he believed in the role of good works, that it was the responsibility of people put on earth to carry out good works and he believed that the United States had a role and indeed an obligation to do good works in the world. He believed that the United States could and should be a force for good. The United States should be an example to the world. As he said when he was campaigning in new jersey in 1912, america is an idea, america is an ideal, america is a vision. And that i think is something that helps to shape his attitude towards american neighbors, to those it has to deal with and towards americas enemies. He supported the spanishamerican war and initially opposed it but he convinced himself that the United States was actually bringing the benefits of civilization to the territories which it took over from the spanish. He supported the intervention of the United States in the affairs of latin american countries. Again, because he felt that the United States was a force for good in those countries. And when he became president , in the first term of his presidency, he intervened quite forcefully in mexican affairs, often i think on rather shaky grounds but he felt he was doing the right thing as he said to british diplomat, im going to teach the south american republics to elect good men. And this is an odd view for a democratic and felt he was carrying out in a sense a mission of gods work and said of mexico sending troops into mexico, we have gone to mexico to serve mankind if we can find the way. We do not want to fight the mexicans. If you were a mexican you might see it a bit differently. So, this is the man whos president of the United States when the war breaks out. Someone whos prepared to use American Power where he sees it as necessary to do good and also of course i think admitted to defend american interests. He certainly felt that in dealing with the caribbean basin and mexico, the United States had every right to defend the rights of american strategic interests. He did not in 1914 i think see the United States as playing a larger role in the world. He was at that stage still very much focused on domestic reforms and a Prime Minister of domestic reforms. But when the war broke out, he was horrified like many were. Distracted, of course, by the fact that his wife was dying in the first days of august as europe was going into the First World War. But he took himself away from her death bed and sent her a note which, unfortunately, was not paid attention to, two different sides moving toward war offering to act as a mediator. The note was not answered by this point. The european nations siding towards war. The war started and there were those in the United States who said forcefully that the United States should get involved. Theodore roosevelt among them and also those on the other side who said equally forcefully the United States should not get involved under any circumstances and there was also considerable debate about if the United States were to get involved on what side should it get involved and it was not a foregone conclusion to intervene on the side of the allies, britain, france, subsequently italy an russia and i think a number of reasons for this. There were large sections of the population in the United States which had no particular love for britain. A large irish population which was not prepared to support the United States going in on the british side. And there were all those who had fled russia for very good reason and who had moved to the United States and saw no reason to support an autocracy and democrats whether they had family who had come from russia did not feel comfortable with the United States supporting a country that was known for being thoroughly undemocratic and autocratic. There was also a Large Population of german descent in the United States, many of whom if they were not prepared to advocate the United States to join on the german side and not willing to see them fight a country for which they had a good deal of affection and as the war broke out i think there was division in Publ