BY 1914 THERE WAS a war party in every country. In May of that year, Col. Edward Mandell House, the eminence grise of the White House, whom Wilson once described as “my second personality … my independent self,” visited the great capitals of Europe to take the temperature of the continent.76 House came home with a chilling assessment: The situation is extraordinary. It is jingoism run stark mad. Unless someone acting for you [Wilson] can bring about a different understanding, there is some day to be an awful cataclysm. No one in Europe can do it. There is too much hatred, too many jealousies.
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