Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World

by Patrick J. Buchanan

On October 5, 1918, Prince Max of Baden sounded out President Wilson on a peace based on the Fourteen Points he had laid out in January. Three days later, Wilson asked Prince Max if Germany would accept the points. On October 12, Prince Max gave assurances that his object in “entering into discussions would be only to agree upon practical details for the application” of the Fourteen Points to a treaty of peace.4 Wilson now began to add conditions. Safeguards must be provided to guarantee Allied “military supremacy” and a democratic and representative government must be established.5 Prince Max agreed. The Kaiser had to go. On October 23, Wilson took the German offer to the Allies. The British and French, after four years of bloodletting that had cost them together two million dead and six million wounded, balked at Wilson’s mild terms. Under a threat from Colonel House of a separate peace, Prime Minister Lloyd George went along, with one reservation. Britain could not agree to the second of Wilson’s points: freedom of the seas. The Royal Navy must be free to do whatever necessary to protect the empire. France succeeded in inserting a claim to full compensation “for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allies and their property by the aggression of Germany by land, by sea, and from the air.”6 Matthias Erzberger, the leader of the Catholic Center Party who had urged fellow Germans to agree to an armistice, was given the thankless task of meeting Marshal Ferdinan...