Fourteen Points

The Fourteen Points was a major policy position by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, released on January 8, 1918. Wilson introduced the idea of a League of Nations, an organization with a stated goal of helping to preserve territorial integrity and political independence among large and small nations alike. The speech was highly idealistic, translating Wilson's progressive domestic policy of democracy, self-determination, open agreements, and free trade into the international realm. Much of the speech was drafted by aide Walter Lippmann. It made several suggestions for specific disputes in Europe on the recommendation of Wilson's foreign policy advisor, Colonel House, and his team of 150 advisors known as “The Inquiry.” The points are:

I. Abolition of secret treaties
II. Freedom of the seas
III. Free Trade
IV. Disarmament
V. Adjustment of colonial claims (decolonization and national self-determination)
VI. Russia to be assured independent development and international withdrawal from occupied Russian territory
VII. Restoration of Belgium to antebellum national status
VIII. Alsace-Lorraine returned to France from Germany
IX. Italian borders redrawn on lines of nationality
X. Autonomous development of Austria-Hungary as a nation, as the Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolved
XI. Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, and other Balkan states to be granted integrity, have their territories deoccupied, and Serbia to be given access to the Adriatic Sea
XII. Sovereignty for the Turkish people of the Ottoman Empire as the Empire dissolved, autonomous development for other nationalities within the former Empire
XIII. Establishment of an independent Poland with access to the sea
XIV. General association of the nations – a multilateral international association of nations to enforce the peace (League of Nations)

The speech was widelay hailed by public opinion in the U.S. and Europe, and drove a wedge between the German leaders and the German people, who welcomed Wilson's formula. The French government, however, wanted high reparations from Germany to pay for the past and future costs of the war to France. Britain, as the great naval power, did not want freedom of the seas. Wilson compromised with Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and many other European leaders during the Paris Peace talks to ensure that most of the point, and especially the fourteenth point, the League of Nations, would be established.

External links

• Wilson, Woodrow. President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points (1918).
• The 14 points

Bibliography

• Bailey; Thomas A. Wilson and the Peacemakers: Combining Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace and Woodrow Wilson and the Great Betrayal (1947) online edition
• Clements, Kendrick, A. Woodrow Wilson: World Statesman (1999)
• Clements, Kendrick A. "Woodrow Wilson and World War I," Presidential Studies Quarterly 34:1 (2004). pp 62+. online edition
• Knock, Thomas J. To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (1995)
• Link, Arthur S. Wilson the Diplomatist: A Look at His Major Foreign Policies (1957) online edition
• Link, Arthur S. Woodrow Wilson and a Revolutionary World, 1913-1921 (1982) online edition
• Link, Arthur S. Woodrow Wilson: Revolution, War, and Peace (1979) online edition
• Walworth, Arthur. Wilson and His Peacemakers: American Diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 (1986)online edition