The Problem with Self-Determination:

A Pandora’s Box of Global Claims.

But Who Really Won the War?

Allies Not Pleased with Wilson’s View.

Special to The Great War Project

(17 December) President Wilson’s arrival in France is nothing less than remarkable.

So observes historian Thomas Fleming. “On the president’s last night at sea, nine American battleships and twenty destroyers joined Wilson’s flotilla. France sent almost as many warships. A veritable armada escorted the president.”

“Soon he was aboard a train to Paris,” Fleming continues, “where reporters glimpsed the first indications that Wilson had already achieved semi-divine status. In many villages people knelt beside the track in the dark, their hands clasped in worship, as the train thundered past.”