The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I [Hardcover]

Thomas Fleming (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 27, 2003

The political history of the American experience in World War I is a story of conflict and bungled intentions that begins in an era dedicated to progressive social reform and ends in the Red Scare and Prohibition. Thomas Fleming tells this story through the complex figure of Woodrow Wilson, the contradictory president who wept after declaring war, devastated because he knew it would destroy the tolerance of the American people, but who then suppressed freedom of speech and used propaganda to excite America into a Hun-hating mob. This is tragic history: inexperienced American military leaders drove their troops into gruesome slaughters; progressive politics were put on hold in America; an idealistic president's dreams were crushed because of his own negligence. Wilson's inability to convince Congress to ratify U.S. membership in the League of Nations was one of the most poignant failures in the history of the American presidency, but even more heartrending were Wilson's concessions to his bitter allies in the Treaty of Versailles. In exchange for Allied support of the League of Nations, he allowed an unfair peace treaty to be signed, a treaty that played no small role in the rise of National Socialism and the outbreak of World War II. Thomas Fleming has once again created a masterpiece of narrative American history. This incomparable portrait shows how Wilson sacrificed his noble vision to megalomania and single-mindedness, while paying homage to him as a visionary whose honorable spirit continues to influence Western politics.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In 1919 Woodrow Wilson came to Versailles almost universally praised as the embodiment of the hopes of the world for a more peaceful future. Nine decades later, there is a general consensus that his idealism and rigidity led to disasters at the peace conference and during the immediate postwar period. Historian Fleming presents what some may regard as a hatchet job. He portrays Wilson, sometimes unfairly, as vain, bigoted, intolerant, and quite willing to use governmental power to repress even mild dissension. Yet, if Fleming's personal attacks are over the top, his analyses of the consequences of Wilson's decisions are on the mark. To obtain French and British acceptance of the League of Nations, Wilson accepted their blatantly unjust punitive measures against Germany. Then, his refusal to compromise doomed acceptance of the League of Nations in the U.S. Senate. His "war to end all wars" led directly to an even more horrible conflagration 20 years later. This is a generally credible indictment of a man whose good intentions failed to deal with reality. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"[Fleming's] latest book is filled with wonderful quotations, salient facts and deft characterizations .... He tells a gripping story." -- New Leader --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; export ed edition (May 27, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 046502467X
• ISBN-13: 978-0465024674
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #337,923 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"How do you write a book?" 24 year old Thomas Fleming asked bestselling writer Fulton Oursler in 1951. "Write four pages a day," Oursler said. "Every day except Sunday. Whether you feel like it or not. Inspiration consists of putting the seat of your pants on the chair at your desk." Fleming has followed this advice to good effect. His latest effort, "The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers," is his 50th published book. Twenty three of them have been novels. He is the only writer in the history of the Book of the Month Club to have main selections in fiction and in nonfiction. Many have won prizes. Recently he received the Burack Prize from Boston University for lifetime achievement. In nonfiction he has specialized in the American Revolution. He sees Intimate Lives as a perfect combination of his double talent as a novelist and historian. "Novelists focus on the imtimate side of life. This is the first time anyone has looked at the intimate side of the lives of these famous Americans, with an historian's eyes." Fleming was born in Jersey City, the son of a powerful local politician. He has had a lifetime interest in American politics. He also wrote a history of West Point which the New York Times called "the best...ever written." Military history is another strong interest. He lives in New York with his wife, Alice Fleming, who is a gifted writer of books for young readers.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

86 of 96 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, insightful, look at the dawn of the modern world, September 22, 2003

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Andrew S. Rogers (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I (Hardcover)

This is a fascinating, entertaining, and truly eye-opening book. Like Thomas Fleming's earler The New Dealers' War: FDR and the War Within World War II, "The Illusion of Victory" is not only a great survey of events that shaped the modern world, but also a much-needed puncturing of one of the twentieth century's most over-inflated reputations (in the former case, FDR's, in this one Woodrow Wilson's) and a very timely reminder of how war overthrows all aims. Most of all, though, this is just extremely well-written history. It is definitely worth a read.

Today, more than three-quarters of a century after the end of the first world war, the myths of that conflict, of America's place in it, and Woodrow Wilson's role in keeping us out, and getting us in, are more pervasive than ever. Fleming reveals not only what a failure Wilson truly was, but how the idealism for which he is so celebrated today was not only sacrificed on the altar of international politicking and hatred, but was poisoned even by the president's own messiah complex and uncompromising partisanship. Fleming paints Wilson as a truly unpleasant figure. And while I can imagine that many readers might consider this an overly negative portrayal -- and accuse Fleming of abandoning the serene and godlike objectivity so many historians maintain (or simulate) -- Fleming has the facts to back up his conclusions. The energy with which Thomas Fleming gores sacred cows like Wilson and FDR is one of his more distinctive characteristics, and it's one I, for my part, particularly value.

As I said, there are many especially timely lessons contained in this book. One of the most striking concerns the remarkably vicious campaign against anti-war, or even insufficiently pro-war, elements in the United States, led by the government itself and its partisans. Whatever your opinions on the contemporary "USA PATRIOT Act," you'll have to admit that John Ashcroft has not even remotely approached the reign of terror carried out in the U.S. during world war one in the name of "100 percent Americanism." This discovery is just one of the many unsettling things readers may learn for the first time between these covers.

Another concerns the equally vicious propaganda campaign against Germany, begun in the U.S. by the British and later enthusiastically adopted by the U.S. government. As other observers have argued, enciting hatred seems to be essential to carrying out the war aims of mass democracies. It's not enough to say we disagree with an opposing government's policies; the enemy -- citizens as well as governments -- have to be painted as subhuman, tarred with accusations of unimaginable atrocities, and condemned to nothing less than absolute, crushing defeat. Fleming does an excellent job showing how French, British, and even American leaders participated in the stirring-up of this blood-hatred of the Germans, and incited the American people to give in to it as well. The corollary of this, of course, is that such hatred can't turn on a dime, and it poisoned attempts to craft a peace treaty that solved legitimate grievances and created a new and better world. Fleming reveals, with sometimes painful clarity, how hatred fueled the creation of a Versailles Treaty designed to destroy Germany economically, militarily, and politically for generations to come. We all know the monsters that this created.

On the whole, I find it hard to recommend this title *too* enthusiastically. I truly enjoyed the time I spent reading it, regretted having to put it down, and looked forward to when I'd be able to dive in again. It's hard to ask more from a book than that, and when a title is not only entertaining and educational, but challengingly "revisionist" and eye-opening too ... well, it doesn't get a whole lot better than that.

42 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Badly Needed Revisionism, January 13, 2005

By 

Barrett Tillman (Mesa, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I (Hardcover)

Mr. Fleming has admitted that he had to abandon the prejudices of a liberal New Jersey upbringing to arrive at an objective assessment of FDR (The New Dealers' War) and Wilson. He certainly has done that. Frequently he crosses over the line of purely objective historian into political and personal commentary, but his assessments all stand scrutiny. While "Illusion" contains some factual errors (note that Fiorello LaGuardia flew in Italy, not France) none are related to the major subject and none detract from Fleming's thesis: Woodrow Wilson's hypocrisy, arrogance, and hunger for power overcame his early idealism, leading to one of the greatest failures of any American administration. Fleming's description of the scheming and lies of Edith Galt Wilson and presidential doctor, Adm. Grayson, foretold comparable lies from FDR's naval aides in WW II. Mrs. Wilson emerges as the Shrew From Hell, reminiscent of the Clinton White House but without Hillary's softer, feminine side (!)

Fleming details Wilson's failure in every major aspect: his refusal, after months of immobility, to hand over to his vice president; persistently ignoring vital domestic issues such as massive strikes and riots, a winter coal shortage, and persecution of minorities, to say nothing of the Prohibition debate. Wilson's tolerance for the continuing postwar naval blockade of Germany ("the worst atrocity of the war" says Fleming) led to thousands of deaths by starvation--this from the president who vowed to conduct "a war without hate."

Yet after all that, WW still felt he deserved a third term and declined to endorse his own son in law for the nomination.

Well done--again--Tom Fleming.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars stimulating read, November 30, 2003

By 

"siegmundfisher" (Kirkland, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I (Hardcover)

One of the first things I look for in books of this genre are the references. Had Fleming been less diligent in annotation, I might agree with critics who found errors or disagreed with his analysis. However, I found it a stimulating read precisely because it presents an alternative point of view.

As it's the first printing, one hopes the factual errors will be corrected for later editions, however, the value of the book is in seeing the period as the prelude to a century of wars rather than the war to end war.

The wars within and without our borders evolved from this period. It was an ending and a beginning. Fleming makes his prejudices quite clear so that readers can take them for what they're worth. However, the book is very timely as we enter a new century defined, to date, by war.

Questions of succession and globalization as well as questions of homeland security are defined in a new way by seeing how they played out almost a century ago.

No one book should be considered the defining statement of such a tumultous time. But, I truly believe this work by Fleming is important to the dialogue.

The very idea of a president not respecting his own advisers, being out of the country for months at a time, and allowing his wife to have more control over his office than elected and appointed officials should be anathema in any age.

This is more than a discussion of Wilson and the war. It is an illustration of the politics of power and the reasons why our constitution defines things as it does. It also illustrates how the constitution can be sidestepped by egos over intellect.

Whether one agrees with Fleming or not, this is a timely and necessary discussion.