Fourteen Points

The Fourteen Points were listed in a speech delivered by President Woodrow Wilson of the United States to a joint session of the United States Congress on January 8, 1918. This speech was intended to assure the country that the war was being fought for a moral cause and for peace in Europe after World War I. The common people of Europe welcomed Wilson as a hero but his Allied colleagues (Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and Orlando) remained skeptical of the applicability of Wilsonian idealism.

The speech was delivered over 10 months before the Armistice with Germany ended World War I, but the Fourteen Points became the basis for the terms of the German surrender, as negotiated at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.The Treaty of Versailles ratified this.

The United States of America joined the Allies fighting the Central Powers on April 6 of 1917. By early 1918, it was clear that the war was nearing its end. The Fourteen Points in the speech were based on the research of the "Inquiry," a team of about 150 advisors led by Colonel Edward M. House, Wilson's foreign policy advisor, into the topics likely to arise in the anticipated peace conference.

Woodrow Wilson's speech on January 8, 1918 took many of the principles of progressivism that had produced domestic reform in the U.S. and translated them into foreign policy (free trade, open agreements, democracy and self-determination). The Fourteen Points speech was the only explicit statement of war aims by any of the nations fighting in World War I: some belligerents gave general indications of their aims; others wanted to gain territory, and so refused to state their aims.

The speech also responded to Vladimir Lenin's Decree on Peace of October 1917, which proposed an immediate withdrawal of Russia from the war, calling for a just and democratic peace that was not compromised by territorial annexations, and led to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918.

Fourteen Points

 * Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.


 * Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.


 * The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.


 * Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.


 * A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.


 * The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.


 * Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.


 * All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.
 * A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.


 * Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.


 * The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.


 * An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.


 * A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.[3][4]

Influence on the Germans to surrender
The speech was widely disseminated as an instrument of propaganda, to encourage the Allies to victory. Copies were also dropped behind German lines, to encourage the Central Powers to surrender in the expectation of a just settlement. Indeed, a note sent to Wilson by Prince Maximilian of Baden, the German imperial chancellor, in October 1918 requested an immediate armistice and peace negotiations on the basis of the Fourteen Points.

Due to the fact that the Germans were excluded from the creation of these points, this was not well received in Germany.

The speech was made without prior coordination or consultation with Wilson's counterparts in Europe. As the only public statement of war aims, it became the basis for the terms of the German surrender at the end of the First World War, as negotiated at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and documented in the Treaty of Versailles.

Opposition from the Allies
Opposition to the Fourteen Points among British and French leaders became clear after hostilities ceased: the British were against freedom of the seas; the French demanded war reparations. Wilson refused to compromise on any of his ideals to ensure that his most important point, the establishment of the League of Nations, was accepted. In the end, the Treaty of Versailles encompassed all of the principles of the Fourteen Points, both in detail and in spirit. This created a secure post war Europe with Germany keeping all its territory aside from Alsace and the eastern gains.

Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, one of the events that triggered the start of the war. Although the armistice signed on 11 November 1918 ended the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. The result of these competing and sometimes incompatible goals among the victors was a compromise that nobody was satisfied with. Germany was neither pacified nor conciliated, which would prove to be a factor leading to later conflicts

Impositions on the Sides
Legal restrictions Article 227 charges against war criminals of all sides.

Military restrictions Part V of the treaty begins with the preamble, "In order to render possible the initiation of a general limitation of the armaments of all nations, Europe undertakes strictly to observe the military, naval and air clauses which follow."[8]

All nations naval forces will be limited to 15,000 men, 6 battleships (no more than 10,000 tons displacement each), 6 cruisers (no more than 6,000 tons displacement each), 6 destroyers (no more than 800 tons displacement each) and 12 torpedo boats (no more than 200 tons displacement each). The manufacture, import, and export of weapons and poison gas is prohibited. Tanks, military aircraft, and artillery are all to be limited to 100. Blockades on ports are prohibited.

All armies must be under 200,000 men.

Territorial losses

All the old colonial powers were compelled to yield control of their colonies.

Alsace-Lorraine, the territories which were ceded to Germany in accordance with the Preliminaries of Peace signed at Versailles on 26 February 1871, and the Treaty of Frankfurt of 10 May 1871, were restored to French sovereignty with a plebiscite as from the date of the Armistice of 11 November 1918.The plebiscite was won by with the desicion to rejoin France. Clemenceau was convinced that the German neighbour had "20 million people too much", thus incorporating the seven million inhabitants and the industry of the Prussian province was seen as means to weaken Germany and strengthen France. Northern Schleswig was returned to Denmark following a plebiscite on 14 February 1920 (area 3,984 km², 163,600 inhabitants (1920)). Central Schleswig, including the city of Flensburg, opted to remain German in a separate referendum on 14 March 1920.

The German and Austrian governments had to acknowledge and strictly respect the independence of Austria. The unification of both countries, although desired by the huge majority of both populations, was strictly forbidden.

Russia's new Bolshevik (communist) government renounced all claims on Finland (which it had already acknowledged), the future Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), Poland, Belarus, Ukraine.

All had democratic elections after breaking away from the new bolshevik government. Shandong problem Article 156 of the treaty transferred German concessions in Shandong, China to Japan rather than returning sovereign authority to China. Chinese outrage over this provision led to demonstrations and a cultural movement known as the May Fourth Movement and influenced China not to sign the treaty. China declared the end of its war against Germany in September 1919 and signed a separate treaty with Germany in 1921.

Reparations

The total sum of war reparations demanded from Germany — 1 billion Reichsmarks in gold (around £60 million)— was decided by an Inter-Allied Reparations Commission. This left the French seething and at one point threatening to pull out.

The Versailles Reparations came in a variety of forms, including coal, steel, intellectual property (eg. the patent for Aspirin) and agricultural products.

The creation of international organizations Part I of the treaty was the Covenant of the League of Nations which provided for the creation of the League of Nations, an organisation intended to arbitrate international disputes and thereby avoid future wars. Part XIII organised the establishment of the International Labour Organisation, to promote "the regulation of the hours of work, including the establishment of a maximum working day and week, the regulation of the labour supply, the prevention of unemployment, the provision of an adequate living wage, the protection of the worker against sickness, disease and injury arising out of his employment, the protection of children, young persons and women, provision for old age and injury, protection of the interests of workers when employed in countries other than their own recognition of the principle of freedom of association, the organisation of vocational and technical education and other measures" Further international commissions were to be set up, according to Part XII, to administer control over the Elbe, the Oder, the Niemen (Russstrom-Memel-Niemen) and the Danube rivers.

Other The Treaty contained a lot of other provisions (economic issues, transportation, etc.). One of the provisions was the following:

"ARTICLE 246. Within six months from the coming into force of the present Treaty, ... Germany will hand over to His Britannic Majesty's Government the skull of the Sultan Mkwawa which was removed from the Protectorate of German east africa.