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73 of 81 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
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.
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30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Badly Needed Revisionism, January 13, 2005
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.
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34 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very readable account of an important subject, November 10, 2003
At a time when many Americans are revisiting the wisdom of the current war in Iraq, The Illusion of Victory provides a cautionary tale. When the United States joined the English and French in their fight against Imperial Germany in 1917, an overwhelming majority of the populace thought this was the right and honorable course of action. Within a few years after the First World War ended, popular sentiment shifted dramatically and the majority of Americans believed that our participation in the European War was a mistake. Following Pearl Harbor and the Nazi declaration of war against the United States, the conventional wisdom shifted again and it was generally assumed that if fighting Hitler was right, going to war with the Kaiser must also have been correct. The Illusion of Victory re-examines the justification for America's declaration of war against Germany in 1917 and the negotiation of the Versailles Peace Treaty following the armistice. Thomas Fleming's highly critical assessment of American policy with regard to both the war and the peace treaty is hardly novel. Walter Millis expounded these views in the best seller The Road to War in 1935. However, Fleming's book is a very readable account of the American experience in World War I. He is dismissive of the reasons we went to war. Foremost was Germany's resort to unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917 to prevent ships of neutral countries from reaching England and France. As Senators Robert La Follette, Sr., George Norris, and a few others pointed out at the time, the United States had acquiesced in the equally illegal British blockade of German ports since 1914. Fleming demonstrates utter contempt for President Woodrow Wilson, a figure whose conventionally good historical reputation is indeed difficult to understand. Wilson is most famous for his "Fourteen Points" speech and his crusade for American participation in the League of Nations. As Fleming points out, at Versailles in 1919, Wilson completely abandoned the Fourteen Points and agreed to British and French demands for a punitive peace. During the War, Wilson repeatedly stated that we had no quarrel with the German people, only with their government. At Versailles, Wilson and the Allies forced the Kaiser's successors to pay reparations, acknowledge sole responsibility for the outbreak of the war and yield territory and its colonial possessions to its neighbors. These measures were regarded to be illegitimate by Germans of every political persuasion and sowed the seeds for World War II. Wilson also acquiesced in the continuation of the British naval blockade of Germany, which starved its civilian population for months after the armistice and the abdication of the Kaiser. Fleming fails to fully acknowledge the domestic political pressures with which Woodrow Wilson had to contend. Beginning with the German sinking of the Lusitania in 1915, there was a very influential segment of American society passionately advocating war. The leader of this group was Theodore Roosevelt, the most notorious warmonger in this nation's history. The author appears to admire Roosevelt, who at least had the courage of his convictions. TR wanted to lead an American division to France and sent all four of his sons to fight. The youngest, Quentin Roosevelt, an aviator, was killed. Nevertheless, if Woodrow Wilson led the United States down the wrong path in going to war in 1917 and mishandled the Paris Peace Conference, Theodore Roosevelt and his allies bear as much responsibility for these errors as the President. Wilson, due to his unwillingness for compromise, bears much responsibility for America's rejection of the League of Nations. However, it is highly unlikely that even with the United States as a member, that the League would have sent an adequate number of soldiers to oppose Hitler's early moves to nullify the Treaty of Versailles. Since Hitler's criticisms of the Treaty contained some half-truths, Americans would have been no more willing than the French and the English to contest German rearmament in the 1930s, remilitarization of the Rhineland and the absorption of Austria. In The Illusion of Victory, Fleming is too easy on Imperial Germany, which was dominated by militarists, many of who believed war with France and Russia was inevitable and preferred it sooner than later. The harsh terms the Germans dictated to Russia at Brest-Litovsk in 1918 indicates that Germany would have been no more magnanimous than the Allies had they been victorious in the west. General Erich Ludendorff, who for all practical purposes ran Germany during the war, was only a slightly less despicable person than Hitler. As it turned out, had the Germans been more patient and not provoked the United States with submarine warfare, they most certainly would have defeated the French and British after the Russians collapsed. By bringing America into the War, the Kaiser's government clutched defeat out of the jaws of victory. Fleming covers the military aspects of American participation in World War I without much analysis. The biggest issue to arise was General John J. Pershing's insistence that American soldiers fight as an American army rather than as replacements in decimated French and British units. The Americans played a vital role in stopping the last German offensive and bringing about the German collapse when the Allies counterattacked. However, one wonders how history would judge General Pershing had the Germans broken through the Allied lines while he was resisting French and British pleas for reinforcements. The Illusion of Victory is an easily digestible introduction to a war whose unintended consequences plague us to this very day. While the Nazis and the Soviet Union no longer threaten us, we are at this very moment dealing with the fallout from the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Iraq for hundreds of years. The reviewer, Arthur J. Amchan, is the author of The Kaiser's Senator: Robert M. LaFollette's Alleged Disloyalty during World War I.
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