[applause] ladies author and Oxford University professor Margaret Mcmillan talks about Woodrow Wilson second term. Once the world war one started the majority of his efforts focused on Foreign Affairs and public policy. Professor mcmillan talks about the attempts to avoid a war and the attempts for a last piece. Here in the United States the great war is indelibly linked through the presidency. Since presidency was infused with irony and contradiction many of you may know that when he assumed office his primary focus his priorities were wrong. He spent most of the next eight to pay bills still you still stay your portion. He ended up parking on a great crusade abroad to make the world safe for democracy. We will send 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 of 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 that 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. He could not wait to leave. When he returned home, the league and the treaty seem 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 the league of nations, and they impelled him to geoeye nationwide tour to drum up support for the league of nations and the treaty, during which he was stricken with a terrible stroke and incapacitated for the rest of his presidency. Even in his personal life, wilson was a very contradictory figure. Too many if you see pictures of him, you think of him as a prudish and austere person. 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 edith olinger. The joke around washington went like this. Quote, what did the new mrs. Wilson do when the president proposed . The answer . She fell out of bed with surprise. [laughter] i listed that anecdote from argument really does from Margaret Macmillans incredible book. We are incredibly lucky to have Margaret Macmillan with us today. Shes 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 head of Saint Anthonys college at oxford, for those of you who have been at oxford, i was privileged enough to spend a year there about a decade ago. Saint anthonys is one of perhaps arguably the best place in the world to study International Relations. Professor mcmillan has written many books. She has written on british women in india, on nixons opening of relations with china. She has written on the uses and abuses of history. 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 peacemaking in 1919. The other just appeared last year and is about the origins of world war i, the war that ended peace. Thats the name of the book. The former book, the one that in some ways will be the framework for todays lecture, i suspect one a half dozen of the englishspeaking worlds most prestigious prizes for the best book on International Relations. Im incredibly happy to have Margaret Macmillan here with us. Shes going to talk for 40 or 45 minutes about wilson in war and peace, then i will engage her in a conversation for 10 or 15 minutes, and then i will open it up for questions. Thank you. [applause] margaret i would like to thank you for that og 5 00 p. M. Kind introduction. I should warn you about that joke about mrs. Wilson. [indiscernible] i would like to think the Miller Center for inviting me. Its a great pleasure to be here. Im ashamed to say it is my first visit to the university of virginia in charlottesville. Arent you lucky to live in such a wonderful place. Im going to talk today about Woodrow Wilson in war and peace. In 1913, at the beginning of his first administration, he said to a friend, it would be an irony of date if my administration had to focus on foreign policy. It was not his interest. It was not something he particularly wanted to have to do. That was something that he ended up doing. We look at him because he presides over the United States at a time of great crisis in world history, the great war First World War, 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. It is also a very important moment in American History and world history. At the time when the United States is in the process of transforming its already great economic strengths, its greatest strengths as a nation, which is finally coming together after the scars and trauma of the civil war, when the United States begins transforming the strength into military strength. When the war began, the United States was not a military power in any sense of the word. It had a small navy, although it was beginning to build up its naval strength. It had a small army. It counted in military terms much less than a smaller countries such as italy. What we see as a consequence of the First World War is the beginnings of the United States becoming a truly global power. Those beginnings were there before 1914. The period between 1914 and 1918 is a very important period in the history of the United States and the history of the world. It is important 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. As president , he not only express the feelings and aspirations of a great many americans, he came to power on the great surge of progressive sentiment that was hoping to remake american society. But he also came to express something of american views of himself and what they might be doing in the world. I do think we have to Pay Attention to wilson the man. We have to put him very firmly in the context of his times. His personality and character and his many foibles would not have mattered if it were not that he was in charge of an important nation at a pivotal time in history. Like a lot of human beings, hes very contradictory. He was a great idea list idealist. If you crossed him, he tended to assume that you were his enemy. He was not good at accepting the people could have different points of view from him. His life is marked by a series of rejecting those who contradicted him, stood against them, disagreed with him. He could be extraordinarily rigid trade he was a great orator. But he also in private told some of the worst jokes ive ever seen. When he was in paris, he was surrounded by a group of people who were working for him and admiring him. They used to write down his conversations in the evening. They wrote down his jokes. Theres a huge collection of his papers. If you want to find some really bad shaggy dog stories, i would go to the wilson papers. Some jokes that go on for 20 minutes with an irishman, a scotsman, southerner northerner. He was an intellectual in office, but a very good practical politician. Anyone who had been governor of new jersey knew something about the practicalities of politics. He was someone who like engaging in ideas, discussing ideas, but he could be very rigid once he made his mind up. Those who knew him well would say he would talk about policy until he made his mind up, then there would be no further discussion. He also had the confidence that he understood better than many other elected leaders what the people wanted. He never really defined what the people was, but it seemed to be those who agreed with him. The people spoke to him. This is where he ran into trouble. He said, to the elected leaders of france, britain, and italy, your people have spoken to me. I know what the people of the world want. The french ambassador in washington said of him that he was a man who had he lived a couple centuries ago would have been the greatest tyrant in the world because he does not seem to have the slightest conception that he can never be wrong. I think this is something that marks wilson. A very intelligent man, but a man who could also be immovable and rigid. When he came to office, like many americans, he had a strong sense of what the United States could do in the world. Part of his understanding and views of what United States could do in the world came from his own background. He was a devout presbyterian. He remained a believer all his life. He believed in the role of good works, that it was the responsibility of people put on those to carry out good works. He believed the United States had a role and obligation to do good works in the world. He believed 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. That is something that helps to shape his attitude towards american neighbors, those he has to deal with, and towards americas enemies. He supported the spanishamerican war, although he initially opposed it trade he convinced himself the United States was 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 because he felt the United States was a force for good in those countries. When he became president , in the first term of his presidency he intervened quite forcefully in mexican affairs. Often on rather shaky grounds, but he felt he was doing the right thing. He said to a british diplomat, im going to teach the south american republics to elect good men. He said of mexico when the u. S. Sent troops into mexico, we have gone to mexico to serve mankind, if we can find a way. We do not want to fight the mexicans. If you were mexican, you might see this differently. This is the man who is president of the United States win the war breaks out, someone prepared to use American Power or he sees it is necessary to do good, and it must be admitted, to defend american interests. He certainly felt in dealing with the caribbean basin and mexico, the United States had every right to defend the interests of american missionaries or business or american strategic interests. He did not in 1914 see the United States playing a larger role in the world. He was focused on domestic reforms and was carrying out an Ambitious Program of domestic reforms. When the war broke out, he was horrified, distracted by the fact that his wife was dying in those first days of august, but he took himself away from her deathbed and sent her a note which unfortunately was not paid attention to, to to the different size sides. There were those on the other side who said the United States should not get involved under any circumstances. There is considerable debate about if United States were to get involved, on which side should get involved. There were large sections in the United States to 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. There were all those who had fled czarist autocracy, who had fled russia for very good reasons, and moved to the United States and saw no reason to support and autocracy. A lot of democrats, whether they had families who would 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 that United States joined on the german side, were not willing to see the United States fight a country for which they still had a good deal of affection. As the war broke out, there was division in Public Opinion. Fair to say that probably the majority of americans hoped the United States could stay out of the war. They looked at what was happening in europe with horror, particularly as the were developed. It seemed what had been promised to be a short war was going to turn into this hideous war of attrition that was going to drag on and on and on. A lot of americans look to europe and thought, why are they doing it, with a sense of bewilderment and shock and horror that the europeans seemed intent on destroying their own civilization. At least in the first year of the war, if you can gauge American Public opinion, i think the feeling was the United States should stay out. But a number of factors, some of them outside wilsons control, began to push the United States gradually towards the allied side. Wilson himself was probably more sympathetic to the allies then he was to the central powers of germany and austriahungary and their other allies, the Ottoman Empire, bulgaria, and so on. Yet not visited europe much, but he had spent time in britain. Had studied british history. He was a great admirer of the development of constitutionalism in britain and the development of liberal thinking in prison. It felt on balance, the allied side with the better side. From the beginning, when there was a question of doing something that might favor the allied side or might favor the central powers, wilson tended to come down on the allied side. For example, on the issue of loans to belligerents this was a thorny issue. Should those fighting be able to borrow money in the u. S. . William Jennings Bryan was initially for ban on both sides, which he argued with some justification was true neutrality. If youre going to be neutral you should not lend to either side. There was pressure from business, from banks which did want to lend, and the people they probably were going to lend to were the allies. The state department was also in favor of making loans to the allies. By the late fall of 1914, wilson had ordered the state department and brian to make it possible for the allies to borrow in the u. S. This was tilting towards the allies. The loans to the allies were going to increase steadily to the point that by 1917, United States mostly private interests had lent 7 billion to the allies. Wilson facilitated it. The war had a favorable impact on the United States because the allies were in a great position to order a great amount of war material from the United States. The war also gave the opportunity for American Business to begin to move in on markets that had been the preserve of the british or the french. In many ways, the war was an economic benefit to the United States. In 1914, u. S. Exports to europe to the sum of 500 million right some of it going to germany, but the bulk of its going to the allied powers. There is a marked increase in the war, which entangles the United States more and more economically with the allies. United states which pushed towards the allied side was pushed towards the allied side. The Great British weapon was a naval blockade. The british imposed a naval blockade on germany. They began to disrupt neutral trade, trades being carried in neutral shipping to germany, which began to irritate American Public opinion this remained a constant irritant in the relationship between the United States and allies, particularly in the United States between the United States and britain. Germany managed to enrage American Public opinion much more than britain did. The germans, increasingly as the war went on, allow their policy to be made by the military. The German Military tended to see very much in terms of winning the war, and they tended to ignore or do