I was reading Keynes' The Economic Consequences of the Peace and noticed that, while European leaders were mentioned by name, Woodrow Wilson was referred to as "the President". I have a hard time deciding whether this was meant to emphasize American power (Keynes did suggest that the Americans could have dictated terms if they so chose) or if there may have been a hint of mockery underneath.
My question is: how did the powers of Europe perceive the United States at the end of WWI, and how much leverage could Wilson draw on at Versailles?
U.S. leverage was enormous, and the source of a great deal of frustration for the French in particular. The core of that leverage was financial and commercial. US goods and US loans were clearly going to be instrumental to the postwar international economic order, given the indebtedness of the victorious allies, their reliance on the US for goods and credit, and Germany's temporary absence from that system. The French also hoped that the U.S. would act as a guarantor of the peace, and actually negotiated a short-lived treaty that would guarantee French security in the event of another German invasion. That treaty was of course never ratified by the Senate, along with the Versailles Treaty and the Covenant of the League of Nations.