Treaty of versailles political cartoon china

Clifford Berryman created this cartoon when President Woodrow Wilson delivered the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate. It shows a senator gazing with puzzlement at a scroll labeled “Peace Treaty,” while Wilson walks back to the White House. President Wilson was deeply involved in negotiating the terms of the treaty in Paris, but he did so without congressional participation.

Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

At Last! drawing by Clifford Berryman, July 10, 1919

The armistice of November 11, 1918, ended the fighting in World War I with Germany. In 1919 delegates drafted the Treaty of Versailles that set the terms of peace at the Paris Peace Conference. President Woodrow Wilson’s “Fourteen Points,” his plan for a “just peace,” laid the framework for the conference. European leaders, however, preferred retribution against Germany. The resulting treaty required Germany to pay reparations, but it largely retained Wilson’s plan. It included provisions for a League of Nations and the creation of new nations in Eastern Europe.

Clifford Berryman created this cartoon when President Woodrow Wilson delivered the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate. It shows a senator gazing with puzzlement at a scroll labeled “Peace Treaty,” while Wilson walks back to the White House. President Wilson was deeply involved in negotiating the terms of the treaty in Paris, but he did so without congressional participation.

Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress