Video: 'The Great War episode 8 War Without End' (treaty defeated at 11:01)
(Wednesday, November 19, 1919, 11:10 p.m. EST) — The U.S. Senate adjourned tonight after rejecting the Treaty of Versailles, which formally ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers, known at the time as the Great War (and later as World War I), by a vote of 55 in favor, 39 against, just short of the two-thirds majority needed for ratification.
The treaty required Germany to disarm, make ample territorial concessions, and pay reparations to certain countries that had formed the Entente power. It also called for the formation of a League of Nations to guarantee the political independence and territorial integrity of all states.
After the Versailles conference, President Woodrow Wilson claimed that “at last the world knows America as the savior of the world!” However, the Republican Party, led by Henry Cabot Lodge, controlled the Senate after the election of 1918.
Wilson launched a speaking tour across the nation in the summer of 1919 to pressure the Senate to approve the treaty, but he suffered a serious stroke that effectively ruined his leadership skills. That and his refusal to compromise made it impossible to build a two-thirds coalition that was needed to pass a treaty.
The Senate would reconsider the treaty once more, with reservations, on March 19, 1920. That vote, 49-35, fell seven votes short of the required two-thirds majority.
