"at last, Mrs. Wilson heard her husband's door open and Colonel House take his
leave. 'I opened the door connecting our rooms. Woodrow was standing. The change in his appearance
shocked me. He seemed to have aged ten years. Silently he held out his hand which I grasped crying 'what is
the matter? What has happened?' He smiled bitterly. 'House has given away everything I had before
won before we left Paris'." (A)
COLONEL HOUSE AND GERMANY'S WESTERN BORDER
What brought about this traumatic scene?
Woodrow Wilson had left Paris and the Paris Peace Conference from
February fourteenth to March fifteenth, leaving Colonel Edward House in
charge of the American delegation. Wilson made his dramatic
response to his wife after being informed by House of what had happened
while Wilson was gone. What did House do to make Wilson feel this
way, what decisions had he made? House later claimed that he had
tried to set the stage for Wilson to return and conclude all
outstanding issues at the conference and that he, House, had no
intention of finalizing any particular aspects of the treaty, such as
the Franco-German border. But House had done enough to cause
Wilson to feel that he had to redo everything.
This paper will examine House's handling of the issue of Germany's western borders in
Wilson's absence. After first providing background and historiographical information and brief biographies of House and
Wilson, this paper will show why House made the decision to proceed on the issue of Western borders and why
Wilson did not understand why House knew that the decision to finalize the border issue was the only option available.
Edward Watson, Northern Virginia Community College
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