LAUSR

ABSTRACT Afraid that his own Department of State had too little knowledge to compete with experienced European diplomats, in the fall of 1917 Woodrow Wilson asked Edward House to gather a group of academics to collect data relevant to the peace process. This group, called the Inquiry, studied every corner of the globe. Sixteen of its reports discussed Alsace-Lorraine; only three of those reports even considered returning the ‘lost provinces’ to France. Although French military power and the determination of the French government assured that Alsace-Lorraine returned to full French control, the Inquiry’s analyses show the conflict between American ideals and its power to influence events on the ground; the many possible futures American specialists envisioned for postwar Europe; and the trouble with trying to rebuild Europe along Wilsonian lines. Thus, although the return of Alsace-Lorraine looks inevitable in hindsight, American attitudes towards the provinces reveal much about the confusion, ambiguity, and wide-open possibilities of the period between the armistice and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.