It becomes far easier to understand the course of events after October 1918 if we acknowledge at the outset that Wilson was always highly sceptical about the democratization process in Germany. The American President was the very opposite of the universalist for which he is too often mistaken. For Wilson, genuine political development was a gradual process deeply determined by profound ethno-cultural and ‘racial’ influences. Regarding Germany he held simplistic views. Ever since the summer of 1917 he had been convinced that the ‘military masters’ of Germany were pursuing a two-pronged
...more
