Americans in Paris, 1919 (Accepted)

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
This paper evaluates the actual contribution of the United States and the American Commission to Negotiate Peace at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. This is especially important in a Hungarian context as Hungarian history writing has largely ignored this subject. Wilson predetermined the language and key goals the Conference with his rhetoric of the League of Nations, the “war to end all wars”, an American-made “scientific peace”, and national self-determination. He and Hoover redefined the concept of humanitarian aid by placing postwar reconstruction in the hands of a US federal agency, the American Relief Administration, and convinced their allies at home and abroad to allow the Americans to run the whole project, from London to Yekaterinburg. American delegates played a moderating role on excessive territorial claims against Hungary and oversaw the drafting of the League covenant, the International Labor Organization charter, and the reparations chapters of the five treaties signed at Paris. Americans in the field (mostly in post-Habsburg Central Europe) acted as arbitrators of conflicts, prevented excessive looting by Rumanians in Hungary, and provided food and medical aid to hundreds of thousands of former enemy nationals as well. The paper argues that the Paris Peace Conference would have been very different without US participation on the highest level.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Tibor Glant is associate professor at the North American Department of the University of Debrecen. His main interests lie in American culture and history and US–Hungarian relations. He is the author of seven books, two in English, on related subjects ranging from travel writing though wartime diplomacy to 1956 and the American adventures and return of Hungary’s Holy Crown. He lives in Debrecen with his wife and daughter.