Dawn of a New Era: The“Wilsonian Moment” in Colonial Contexts and the Transformation of World Order, 1917–1920

Abstract

When Woodrow Wilson, the president of the United States, steamed into the harbor of Brest on the French Atlantic coast on Friday, December 13, 1918, the mayor of Brest, who met the president at the dock, hailed him as an apostle of liberty, come to relieve the peoples of Europe from their suffering.1 The next morning, driving along the streets of Paris, Wilson was cheered by crowds of ecstatic Parisians: “Vive Wilson! Vive l’Amérique, vive la liberté!” The press in France and elsewhere sang his praises, and labor leaders hailed him as “the incarnation of the hope of the future.”2 Similar receptions met Wilson when he traveled to London and Rome in the next several weeks.3 The French pacifist author and Nobel laureate, Romain Rolland, seemed to express these widespread sentiments when he hailed Wilson as a figure poised to lead humanity toward a better, more just world, and called on him “to establish the new Charter of enfranchisement and of union” that would bring together all peoples.4