The war was a disease that all the Great Powers of Europe had carried in their political DNA, as it were. Now it was up to America, and Woodrow Wilso… - Arthur Herman

With a commander in chief handing out a general license to hunt for spies, it's not surprising Americans responded.

Today Americans call their descendants "Scotch-Irish," but we must consider them Scots in every significant respect. In truth, they are the first representatives of the great Scottish diaspora that changed the rest of the world.

In Wilson's mind, the signing represented the defeat not simply of Germany but of an entire way of organizing the world. Balance of power, armed alliances, secret treaties, "might makes right" — all these assumptions would now be thrown out.