AMERICAN HISTORIANS AT THE VERSAILLES PEACE CONFERENCE, 1919: THE SCHOLAR AS PATRIOT AND DIPLOMAT

Professional historians during the First World War departed in important ways from the province of amateur historians during the nineteenth century. In other respects, however, their activities reaffirmed traditional assumptions about the citizen-scholar's obligation to serve the public interests and those of the state.The relationship between the nineteenth century experience of amateur historians, the province of professional historian-experts in the twentieth century, and the ideal of intellectual service gained clarity in the unprecedented atmosphere of the First World War. Marshalling its industrial and military potential, the government sought also to mobilize American public opinion behind the war effort and decided upon an unprecedented propaganda campaign to win support for the allies. This decision precipitated a crisis for the intellectual in American society and most notably for the historian.Historians who enlisted in the government's campaign found themselves faced with perplexing moral and ethical questions. Self-styled guardians of truth and objectivity, historians became enmeshed in partisan discord in an atmosphere charged with hate, hysteria, and blind patriotism far removed from the "ivory tower." As experts commanding intellectual authority, historians constituted an influential elite whose opinions, biases, and expertise were effectively harnessed in service to the state.Beyond their role as propagandists and advocates, historians contributed to the formulation of foreign policy. This study explores the role of historians in the American Commission to Negotiate Peace, and their administrative, intellectual, and foreign policy contributions as members of the American delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference and the Inquiry. Their participation in the Paris negotiations accelerated a major trend in the development of the historical profession in the United States: the bureaucratization of the historian as government academic.Questions of presentism and subjective participation in historical inquiry did not arise with progressive historians of the decade immediately preceding the First World War it was an inheritance from the nineteenth century, from amateur historians who recognized that in the decisions men make there existed conflict and choice--and thus moral judgment.The dilemmas, ethical conundrums, and implications of this development were largely ignored by historians during the war, but such challenges could not be disregarded after the Peace of Versailles.