AHA Presidential Addresses No Peace without Victory, 1861–1865
President of the Association, 2003 This presidential address was
delivered at the 118th annual meeting of the American Historical
Association, held in Washington, DC, January 3, 2004. For at
least the past two centuries, nations have found it harder to
end a war than to start one. Americans relearned that bitter
lesson in Vietnam and, having apparently forgotten it, have been
forced to learn it all over again in Iraq. The difficulties of
achieving peace are compounded when the war aims of a
belligerent include regime change in the enemy polity. In the
Napoleonic Wars, the coalition forces finally ended the conflict
when they forced Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte to abdicate—twice.
In World War I, Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Allies would
negotiate only with a democratic government in Germany, and the
armistice did not go into effect until the kaiser abdicated. In
World War II, the Allies demanded the unconditional surrender of
Axis governments in