The War Guilt Clause

The year is 1916. The times are grim with U.S. President Woodrow Wilson campaigning for a second term on a platform to keep the country out of the genocidal European War that has already claimed millions of lives on the Western Front in France, to say nothing of the Eastern Front in Russia. Seventeen-year-old Mary Cady aboard the liner Stefano bound for America, receives a telegram informing that her parents have died in a Zeppelin attack; then, within sight of America, Mary's right arm is shattered by a shard from an artillery shell fired from a German submarine. This outrage, among many, forces Wilson to declare war on Germany, and Mary, along with Ted and Ed, the Frederick twins from Brooklyn, joins the fight. The War Guilt Clause carries the twins and Mary through the 1917 and 1918 action on the Western Front and into the 1919 Paris Peace Conference where Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles forever assigned the blame for World War I to Germany. The novel concludes with the desperate attempt by Woodrow Wilson to gain approval by the U.S. Congress for his dream of a United States leading the World to an era of peace through the vehicle of a League of Nations.