Britain and the ‘Great Betrayal’: Anglo-American Relations and the Struggle for United States Ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, 1919–1920

1978 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 885-911 ◽  
Author(s):  
George W. Egerton
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Senate ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
British Government ◽  
Large Measure ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
Defence Strategy ◽  
Anglo American

Historians have examined in great detail the dramatic debate in American politics over the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles which culminated in the physical collapse of President Wilson and the defeat of his peace programme. The failure of Wilson to carry his programme through the United States senate represented also a distinct setback for the peacemaking strategies of the British government whose policies at the peace conference had been based in large measure on the hope that an enduring trans-Atlantic partnership could be established. The British government followed closely the American treaty debate, sending Viscount Grey, the former Liberal foreign secretary, as a special ambassador, and played a significant if unsuccessful role in the outcome of the drama. It is the intention of this article to examine the attitudes and role of the Lloyd George government through the latter part of 1919 and into 1920 with regard to the fate of the Treaty of Versailles in America, and in particular to reassess the part played by Viscount Grey. It is hoped to shed some new light on the dilemmas of foreign policy and defence strategy encountered at this time by Britain and the empire, as well as to elucidate certain aspects of the American struggle. Since the Covenant of the League of Nations lay at the heart of the American fight over the treaty, it is hoped also that new insight will be provided on the uncertain inauguration of the League.

Dissolution

2019 ◽  
pp. 169-197
Author(s):  
Charlie Laderman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Near East ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
Oil Resources ◽  
The Us ◽  
Anglo American

The Armenian mandate debate is overlooked in studies of the fight over ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and membership of the League of Nations. This chapter emphasizes its significance to debates over US league membership and the United States’ postwar relationship with Britain. It explores the findings of the Harbord Commission, the investigative group that President Wilson sent to the Near East to ascertain whether the US should accept a mandate. It follows the American public debate over assuming the mandate in Congress and the national press, highlighting how it reveals the residual American mistrust of British imperialism, as well as the growing British disillusionment with American indecision over whether to make a commitment in the Near East. It explains how this aggravated tensions in Anglo-American relations, already evident in the clash between the two nations over access to the region’s oil resources. And it explores how the collapse of order in the Near East in 1922 led to Americans and Britons blaming each other for allowing the outbreak of renewed atrocities.

The Harding Administration, the League of Nations, and the Separate Peace Treaty

1967 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt ◽  
Sarah Wimer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles

President Woodrow Wilson spent over one-half year in Paris to negotiate the Treaty of Versailles. Upon his return he submitted the Treaty to the Senate for confirmation. A deadlock between the Executive and the Legislature twice prevented passage of the Treaty. The issue extended to the presidential election of 1920 when many voters supported Warren G. Harding convinced that he was more likely to bring about the entry of the United States into the League than his Democratic opponent.

Habeas Corpus in Wartime

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda L. Tyler
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
Habeas Corpus ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Early American ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Historical Resources

Habeas Corpus in Wartime unearths and presents a comprehensive account of the legal and political history of habeas corpus in wartime in the Anglo-American legal tradition. The book begins by tracing the origins of the habeas privilege in English law, giving special attention to the English Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, which limited the scope of executive detention and used the machinery of the English courts to enforce its terms. It also explores the circumstances that led Parliament to invent the concept of suspension as a tool for setting aside the protections of the Habeas Corpus Act in wartime. Turning to the United States, the book highlights how the English suspension framework greatly influenced the development of early American habeas law before and after the American Revolution and during the Founding period, when the United States Constitution enshrined a habeas privilege in its Suspension Clause. The book then chronicles the story of the habeas privilege and suspension over the course of American history, giving special attention to the Civil War period. The final chapters explore how the challenges posed by modern warfare during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have placed great strain on the previously well-settled understanding of the role of the habeas privilege and suspension in American constitutional law. Throughout, the book draws upon a wealth of original and heretofore untapped historical resources to shed light on the purpose and role of the Suspension Clause in the United States Constitution, revealing all along that many of the questions that arise today regarding the scope of executive power to arrest and detain in wartime are not new ones.

U.S. Labor Irreconcilables and Reservationists and the Founding ILO Conference in Washington, D.C., November 1919

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth McKillen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Working Women ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
International Labor Organization ◽  
International Labor ◽  
Economic Considerations

This chapter examines the debate over U.S. membership in the League of Nations and the International Labor Organization (ILO) as the ILO founding conference took place in Washington, D.C., in November 1919. It considers the importance of the International Congress of Working Women and African Americans from Leftist groups in shaping the debate over the ILO in the United States. In particular, it explores how a unique confluence of class, diaspora, race, and isolationist politics in the United States drove many centrist labor and moderate Left groups to adopt “irreconcilable” or harshly reservationist positions on the question of U.S. participation in the League and ILO. It also discusses Republican Senator Robert LaFollette's attack on the ILO in Congress and suggests that the debate over the ILO is illustrative of the role of economic considerations and ideas about the racialized division of labor in shaping Congressional responses to Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy programs in 1919.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Amanda L. Tyler
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Habeas Corpus ◽  
American Law ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Anglo American

The Introduction provides an overview of the history of the writ of habeas corpus and an overview of the book, which tells the story of what is sometimes known as “the Great Writ” as it has unfolded in Anglo-American law. The primary jurisdictions explored are Great Britain and the United States, yet many aspects of this story will ring familiar to those in other countries with a robust habeas tradition. The book chronicles the longstanding role of the common law writ of habeas corpus as a vehicle for reviewing detentions for conformity with underlying law, as well as the profound influence of the English Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 on Anglo-American law. The Introduction highlights how the writ has at times failed to live up to its glorification by Blackstone and others, while noting that at other times it has proven invaluable to protection of liberty, including as a vehicle for freeing slaves and persons confined solely based on a King’s whim.

The Pilgrims Society and Public Diplomacy, 1895-1945

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Bowman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Involvement ◽  
The Press ◽  
Anglo American

This book examines the role of the elite Pilgrims Society in Anglo-American relations during the first half of the twentieth century. The Pilgrims Society was a dining club founded in London and New York in 1902 and 1903 which sought to improve relations between Britain and the United States. The Society provided an elite network that brought together influential politicians, diplomats, journalists, and businessmen during key moments in Anglo-American diplomacy. This book argues that the Pilgrims acted in cooperation with officialdom in both countries to promote its essentially elitist conception of Anglo-American friendship. The book presents a series of case studies that focus on the proceedings and wider diplomatic significance of lavish banquets held across the period at iconic London and New York hotels. In so doing, the book is the first-ever scholarly examination of the Pilgrims Society and establishes the role of unofficial public diplomacy activities and associational culture in official Anglo-American relations in an earlier period than has been recognised in the existing historiography. The book concludes that the Pilgrims Society is best regarded as a semi-official actor in international relations which – through its engagement with the press and by means of facilitating contact between policy-making elites – provided a milieu that supported ideas of Anglo-American friendship and legitimised greater state involvement in public diplomacy.

Massachusetts labour and the League of Nations controversy in 1919

1975 ◽  
Vol 19 (76) ◽  
pp. 396-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Senate ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Irish Americans

Why did a minority succeed in defeating the League of Nations? The failure of the United States senate to ratify President Woodrow Wilson’s peace treaty has invited explanation for half a century and more. Historians argue that the intraisigence of Wilson and of his outright opponents, the ‘Irreconcilables’, forced a sufficient number of senators to drop their support. They attribute significance to the sensitivities of Republicans and congressmen smarting under the wartime powers of a Democratic president. They have also, rather reluctantly, turned their attention to the senators’ constituents. In dealing with the latter, historians have emphasised the influence of Irish-Americans. The Irish contingent, Link argues, ‘were up in arms because Wilson had refused to press the cause of Irish independence in Paris and because the treaty allegedly benefited the hated English’. According to Adler, even those who considered that ‘American-Irishmen were asses’ conceded their influence: ‘each jackass had one vote and there were lots of them’. Stone agrees that the ‘Irish vote, always important in American politics, had added significance for the league fight’.

The Rôle of the Senate in Treaty-Making: A Survey of Four Decades

1934 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 583-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denna Frank Fleming
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Senate ◽  
Large Majority ◽  
International Agreement ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Settlement Of Disputes

The action of the United States Senate upon the large majority of treaties laid before it has been comparatively perfunctory and without important result. Four-fifths of all the treaties submitted to the Senate have been approved by it without any change whatever. Twenty-one per cent have been altered in the Senate, for the most part by changes of words or clauses that later passed the scrutiny of both the President and the foreign powers concerned. Of the 152 treaties amended by the Senate, only one-fifth have been changed so seriously as to compromise or destroy the international agreement proposed. Likewise, the failure of 62 treaties to be approved by the Senate in any form has had serious consequences in not more than a fifth of the situations resulting.Moreover, while all kinds of treaties have incurred the Senate's displeasure, it has consistently emasculated only one type, i.e., those for the pacific settlement of disputes. It is upon the Senate's action on this class of treaties that opinion as to the usefulness of its rôle in treaty-making must divide. To those who believe that a policy of national isolation can and should be maintained, the record of the Senate is not disturbing; it is highly praiseworthy.

LGBTQ Politics in Anglo-American Democracies

2019 ◽  
pp. 137-152
Author(s):  
Miriam Smith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Gay Liberation ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Political Citizenship ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Role Of Religion

This chapter surveys LGBTQ politics in the Anglo-American democracies, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Political change has followed a somewhat similar trajectory from the decriminalization of same-sex conduct through struggles over discrimination in areas such as employment to the recognition of same-sex relationships and families. From the emergence of gay liberation in the late 1960s to the marriage equality movements of the 2000s, LGBTQ communities have increasingly lived in the open and pushed for full sexual and political citizenship. In the Anglo-American democracies, same-sex conduct is no longer criminal, discrimination in key areas such as employment is banned, and some form of same-sex relationship recognition exists. At the same time, however, progress in the recognition of queer rights has been uneven, with the United States failing to prohibit employment discrimination and Australia only recently providing legal recognition of same-sex marriage. This chapter discusses the intersection of social movement activism and political institutions in these cases, exploring the role of political mobilization and litigation by LGBTQ movements. In doing so, it identifies some of the key factors that have facilitated and impeded the process of legal and policy change for LGBTQ communities across this group of countries including political institutional factors, partisan electoral dynamics, and the role of religion and public opinion.

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