Fourteen Points

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson
The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918 speech on war aims and peace terms to the United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson. However, his main Allied colleagues (Georges Clemenceau of France, David Lloyd George of the United Kingdom, and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy) were skeptical of the applicability of Wilsonian idealism.

The United States had joined the Triple Entente in fighting the Central Powers on April 6, 1917. Its entry into the war had in part been due to Germany's resumption of submarine warfare against merchant ships trading with France and Britain and also the interception of the Zimmermann Telegram. However, Wilson wanted to avoid the United States' involvement in the long-standing European tensions between the great powers; if America was going to fight, he wanted to try to separate that participation in the war from nationalistic disputes or ambitions. The need for moral aims was made more important when, after the fall of the Russian government, the Bolsheviks disclosed secret treaties made between the Allies. Wilson's speech also responded to Vladimir Lenin's Decree on Peace of November 1917, immediately after the October Revolution in 1917.

The speech made by Wilson took many domestic progressive ideas and translated them into foreign policy (free trade, open agreements, democracy and self-determination). Three days earlier United Kingdom Prime Minister Lloyd George had made a speech setting out the UK's war aims which bore some similarity to Wilson's speech but which proposed reparations be paid by the Central Powers and which was more vague in its promises to the non-Turkish subjects of the Ottoman Empire. The Fourteen Points in the speech were based on the research of the Inquiry, a team of about 150 advisers led by foreign-policy adviser Edward M. House, into the topics likely to arise in the anticipated peace conference.

Visions of victory: debates about the post-war world

The immediate cause of the United States' entry into World War I in April 1917 was the German announcement of renewed unrestricted submarine warfare and the subsequent sinking of ships with Americans on board. But President Wilson's war aims went beyond the defense of maritime interests. In his War Message to Congress, Wilson declared that the United States' objective was "''to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world''." In several speeches earlier in the year, Wilson sketched out his vision of an end to the war that would bring a "just and secure peace," not merely "a new balance of power."

Congress had declared war on Germany on 9 April 1917 and until the 14 Points, Wilson's statements about American war aims had been rather vague, mostly limited to statements about being for democracy and against aggression. When Pope Benedict XV in a 1917 speech called for the immediate end of the war on the basis of the restoration of pre-1914 ''status quo'', Wilson in a letter to the pontiff on 27 August 1917 rejected the pope's call for peace as he wrote: "Our response must be based on stern facts and upon nothing else...America wanted not a mere cessation of arms, but a stable and enduring peace". Wilson argued that he was rejecting the pope's peace message on moral grounds as he argued that a lasting peace would require "saving the free peoples of the world from the menace and the actual power of a vast military establishment controlled by an irresponsible government" that wanted to "dominate the world". Notably, Wilson was vague about what he considered to be a "stable and enduring peace" other than it required the defeat of Germany.

Wilson in his speeches and letters was always careful to make a distinction between Germany's "criminal" government and the German people. At least part of this distinction was due to his knowledge of the political crisis in Germany. In 1914, the pacifistic Social Democratic Party split and broke into two factions over the issue of the war. One faction, the Independent Social Democrats opposed the war under the grounds that the German working class had no quarrel with the working classes of France, Britain and Russia. The Majority Social Democrats supported the war under the grounds that Russia was supposedly about to invade Germany. However, the Majority Social Democrats made it clear that their support for the government was only for a defensive war and that they were opposed to a war of conquest. By 1917, the Majority Social Democrats were becoming increasing disenchanted with the war as the government dropped hints that the ''Reich'' would be expanding after a German victory as it started to become apparent that the alleged defensive war was in fact a war of conquest. In response, the Majority Social Democrats voted with the ''Zentrum'' and various left-liberals for the ''Friedensresolution'' ("peace resolution") in the ''Reichstag'' asking for the government not to seek annexations as a war aim. The resolutions of the ''Reichstag'' were only symbolic with no binding power over the government, but the ''Friedensresolution'' were the clearest sign yet that the ''Burgfrieden'' ("peace-within-a caste-under siege") was breaking down.

President Wilson subsequently initiated a secret series of studies named the Inquiry, primarily focused on Europe, and carried out by a group in New York which included geographers, historians and political scientists; the group was directed by Edward M. House.Heckscher, p. 470. Their job was to study Allied and American policy in virtually every region of the globe and analyze economic, social, and political facts likely to come up in discussions during the peace conference. The group produced and collected nearly 2,000 separate reports and documents plus at least 1,200 maps. Walter Lippmann of "the Inquiry" defined the central American war aim as "the disestablishment of a Prussian Middle Europe" and to find a way prevent the ''Reich'' from being "the master of the continent" after the war.

The Armenian genocide that began in April 1915 attracted much media attention in the Allied nations at the time, and throughout the summer and fall of 1917 Wilson had been the subject of fierce criticism by Republican politicians such as the former president Theodore Roosevelt and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge for his unwillingness to ask Congress to declare war on the Ottoman empire. In a forshadowing of the "Germany First" strategy of World War Two, Wilson and other senior figures in his administration argued that the United States should commit its power to defeat the ''Reich'' first and that any operations against the Sublime Porte would be a waste of American resources. Wilson argued that Germany was an advanced, industrial nation while the Ottoman empire was a backward nation with almost no modern industries, and as such the defeat of Germany would automatically lead to the defeat of the Ottoman empire. Both Roosevelt and Cabot Lodge argued in various speeches and columns that the United States had a moral duty to stop the Armenian genocide by declaring war on the Ottoman Empire.. Roosevelt in his popular newspaper column in the ''Kansas City Star'' that was nationally syndicated accused Wilson of crying "crocodile tears" over the Armenian genocide as he maintained that if he was still president the United States would had already ended the genocide. In response to such criticism, Wilson had asked Colonel House and the authors of "the Inquiry" such as Lippmann to come up with a plan to protect the Armenians after the hoped for Allied victory, even through the United States was not at war with the Ottoman empire. The parts of the 14 Points relating to the Near East where the emphasis was upon protecting minority rights were at least in part designed to rebut the criticism that the Wilson administration was indifferent to the genocide being waged in Anatolia. The purpose of the Armenian genocide together with the related genocides against the Pontic Greeks and the Assyrians was to achieve the "homogenization" of Asia Minor. Through the genocidal policies of the Committee of Union and Progress regime were not referenced by name in the 14 Points, the emphasis on protecting the rights of minorities under the Sublime Porte was an implicit response to such policies. The studies culminated in a speech by Wilson to Congress on January 8, 1918, wherein he articulated America's long-term war objectives. The speech was the clearest expression of intention made by any of the belligerent nations, and it projected Wilson's progressive domestic policies into the international arena.

On 7 November 1917, the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin overthrew the Russian Provisional Government in Petrograd and established the world's first Communist government. On 8 November 1917, Lenin issued the Degree On Peace which called for the immediate end to the war on the basis of a "just and democratic peace", which was defined as "a peace without annexations or indemnitees"; national self-determination in place of the traditional power politics and the end of secret diplomacy. Lenin repudiated the foreign policy of Imperial Russia, and published all of the secret treaties that the former regime had signed with the Allies under which the Allies had envisioned extensive territorial changes and divided much of the world up into spheres of influence. As part of the repudiation of the foreign policy of Imperial Russia, Lenin also renounced all of the Russian extra-territorial rights and concessions in China with the notable exception of the Russian-owned Chinese Eastern Railroad. The fact that Soviet Russia was the first European power to voluntarily renounce almost all of the so-called "unequal treaties" of the 19th century won the new Bolshevik regime much prestige in China, to the visible discomfort of the other powers that still held onto their special extra-territorial rights in China. The publication of the secret treaties relating to Europe, Africa, China and the Near East caused the governments of Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan much embarrassment at the time as the secret treaties made it appear that the Allied leaders were only self-interested. Lenin in his speeches accused all of the Allied leaders of being only selfish "bourgeois" leaders who only cared about imperialism while he presented himself as an idealist who sought the betterment of ordinary people by rejecting imperialism. Likewise, Lenin in his speeches made a series of idealistic proposals for an international order such as no change in borders without the consent of the people involved; disarmament; and the end of secret diplomacy. The Bolshevik publication of the secret treaties was especially embarrassing for the Allies as the former government of Russia for obvious reasons had signed no secret treaties with Germany, the Austrian empire, and the Ottoman empire, and thus the war aims of the Central powers (who also envisioned vast territorial changes in their favor) remained secret.

At the time, it was felt that Lenin had seized the moral high ground as he was able to present himself as someone with no apparent interest in championing his nation at the expense of other nations. Despite his claims of idealism, Lenin was in fact self-interested in the Degree on Peace. The Bolsheviks had come to power on the basis of an immediate peace with Germany, and Lenin knew very well that the Germans planned to annex vast tracts of the former Russian empire by creating a number of puppet states, hence his statements about the right to national self-determination were made to prepare the way for the expected territorial losses when a peace treaty was signed with Germany. However, this was not widely appreciated at the time, and Lenin was able to present himself as an idealist. Wilson, in common with other world leaders, were afraid of the possibility of Communist revolutions inspired by the Russian example breaking out elsewhere, and decided to offer his set of idealistic war aims as a way to challenge Lenin's claims to the moral high ground. The American historian Erik Goldstein wrote that Wilson created the 14 Points largely "...to provide an ideological alternative to Lenin and his Communist regime". When drafting the 14 Points alongside his close adviser and friend, Colonel House, Wilson mostly spoke about Russia. The American historian N. M. Phelps wrote that in January 1918 Wilson "...needed to seize the moment if he was going to avoid being eclipsed by Lenin’s competing program for the postwar world". To rebut Lenin's charge of seeking only selfish war aims, the Allied leaders felt the need to present their war aims in more idealistic terms. On 5 January 1918, the British prime minister David Lloyd George gave a speech in London stating that the British war aims were "self-determination" to the subject peoples of the Austrian and Ottoman empires.

Speech

The speech, known as the Fourteen Points, was developed from a set of diplomatic points by Wilson and territorial points drafted by the Inquiry's general secretary, Walter Lippmann, and his colleagues, Isaiah Bowman, Sidney Mezes, and David Hunter Miller.Godfrey Hodgson, ''Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House'' (Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 160–63. Lippmann's draft territorial points were a direct response to the secret treaties of the European Allies, which Lippmann had been shown by Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. Lippmann's task, according to House, was "to take the secret treaties, analyze the parts which were tolerable, and separate them from those which were regarded as intolerable, and then develop a position which conceded as much to the Allies as it could, but took away the poison.... It was all keyed upon the secret treaties."

In the speech, Wilson directly addressed what he perceived as the causes for the world war by calling for the abolition of secret treaties, a reduction in armaments, an adjustment in colonial claims in the interests of both native peoples and colonists, and freedom of the seas. Wilson also made proposals that would ensure world peace in the future. For example, he proposed the removal of economic barriers between nations, the promise of self-determination for national minorities, and a world organization that would guarantee the "political independence and territorial integrity fgreat and small states alike"a League of Nations.

Though Wilson's idealism pervaded the Fourteen Points, he also had more practical objectives in mind. He hoped to keep Russia in the war by convincing the Bolsheviks that they would receive a better peace from the Allies, to bolster Allied morale, and to undermine German war support. The address was well received in the United States and Allied nations and even by Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, as a landmark of enlightenment in international relations. Wilson subsequently used the Fourteen Points as the basis for negotiating the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the war.

Text

In his speech to Congress, President Wilson declared fourteen points which he regarded as the only possible basis of an enduring peace:

Reaction

Allies

Wilson at first considered abandoning his speech after Lloyd George delivered a speech outlining British war aims, many of which were similar to Wilson's aspirations, at Caxton Hall on January 5, 1918. Lloyd George stated that he had consulted leaders of "the Great Dominions overseas" before making his speech, so it would appear that Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Newfoundland were in broad agreement.

Wilson was persuaded by his adviser House to go ahead, and Wilson's speech overshadowed Lloyd George's and is better remembered by posterity.

The speech was made without prior coordination or consultation with Wilson's counterparts in Europe. Clemenceau, upon hearing of the Fourteen Points, was said to have sarcastically proclaimed, "The good Lord had only ten!" (). As a major public statement of war aims, it became the basis for the terms of the German surrender at the end of the First World War. After the speech, House worked to secure the acceptance of the Fourteen Points by Entente leaders. On October 16, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson and Sir William Wiseman, the head of British intelligence in America, had an interview. This interview was one reason why the German government accepted the Fourteen Points and the stated principles for peace negotiations.

The report was made as negotiation points, and the Fourteen Points were later accepted by France and Italy on November 1, 1918. Britain later signed off on all of the points except the freedom of the seas. The United Kingdom also wanted Germany to make reparation payments for the war, and thought that should be added to the Fourteen Points. The speech was delivered 10 months before the Armistice with Germany and became the basis for the terms of the German surrender, as negotiated at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.

Central Powers

The speech was widely disseminated as an instrument of Allied propaganda and was translated into many languages for global dissemination. Copies were also dropped behind German lines, to encourage the Central Powers to surrender in the expectation of a just settlement. The German government rejected the 14 Points as the basis of a peace settlement. The duumvirate that ruled Germany that consisted of Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff were supremely confident that Operation Michael as the offensive planned for March 1918 was code-named would win the war. The German spring offensive of 1918 did make gains, but fell far short of being the decisive victory that Hindenburg and Ludendorff had expected. By the summer of 1918, the Allies were winning the war and on 28 September 1918 Ludendorff advised the Emperor Wilhelm II that the ''Reich'' was defeated and the best that the Germany can now hope to achieve would be an armistice that preserved Germany as a great power. Neither Hindenburg nor Ludendorff intended to take any responsibility for their failures as generals and rather cynically forced the Kaiser to bring about democratic reforms as a way to ensure the responsibility for the defeat fell on the shoulders of others. Ludendorff in particular gave a somewhat distorted version of the 14 points as a way to entice Prince Max of Baden to form a new government that would seek an armistice. Indeed, in a note sent to Wilson, 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.

United States

Theodore Roosevelt, in a January 1919 article titled, "The League of Nations", published in ''Metropolitan Magazine'', warned: "If the League of Nations is built on a document as high-sounding and as meaningless as the speech in which Mr. Wilson laid down his fourteen points, it will simply add one more scrap to the diplomatic waste paper basket. Most of these fourteen points... would be interpreted... to mean anything or nothing."

Senator William Borah after 1918 wished "this treacherous and treasonable scheme" of the League of Nations to be "buried in hell" and promised that if he had his way it would be " 20,000 leagues under the sea".

Other countries

Wilson's speech regarding the Fourteen Points led to unintentional but important consequences in regards to countries which were under European colonial rule or under the influence of European countries. In many of the Fourteen Points, specifically points X, XI, XII and XIII, Wilson had focused on adjusting colonial disputes and the importance of allowing autonomous development and self-determination. This drew significant attention from anti-colonial nationalist leaders and movements, who saw Wilson's swift adoption of the term "self-determination" (although he did not actually use the term in the speech itself) as an opportunity to gain independence from colonial rule or expel foreign influence.

Consequently, Wilson gained support from anti-colonial nationalist leaders in Europe's colonies and countries under European influence around the globe who were hopeful that Wilson would assist them in their goals. Around the world, Wilson was occasionally elevated to a quasi-religious figure; as someone who was an agent of salvation and a bringer of peace and justice. During this 'Wilsonian moment', there was considerable optimism among anti-colonial nationalist leaders and movements that Wilson and the Fourteen Points were going to be an influential force that would re-shape the long established relationships between the West and the rest of the world. Many of them believed that the United States, given its history (particularly the American Revolution) would be sympathetic towards the goals and aspirations they held. A common belief among anti-colonial nationalist leaders was the U.S., once it had assisted them in gaining independence from colonial rule or foreign influence, would establish new relationships which would be more favorable and equitable than what had existed beforehand.

However, the nationalist interpretations of both the Fourteen Points and Wilson's views regarding colonialism proved to be misguided. In actuality, Wilson had never established a goal of opposing European colonial powers and breaking up their empires, nor was he trying to fuel anti-colonial nationalist independence movements. It was not Wilson's objective or desire to confront European colonial powers over such matters, as Wilson had no intention of supporting any demands for self-determination and sovereignty that conflicted with the interests of the victorious Allies.

In reality, Wilson's calls for greater autonomous development and sovereignty had been aimed solely at European countries under the rule of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. He did not explicitly outline this, although it is clear that his calls for greater sovereignty in these regions was in an effort to try and destabilise those enemies' empires. President Wilson's ambitions for the third world were rather to attempt to influence its development in order to transform it from 'backward' to 'sophisticated', the aim being to incorporate it into the commercial world, so that the U.S could further benefit from trade with the global south. Furthermore, Wilson did not believe the third world was ready for self governance, asserting that a period of trusteeship and tutelage from colonial powers was required to manage such a transition. Wilson viewed this approach as essential to the 'proper development' of colonised countries, reflecting his views about the inferiority of the non-European races. Moreover, Wilson was not by character or background an anti-colonialist or campaigner for rights and freedoms for all people, instead he was also very much a racist, a fundamental believer in white supremacy. For example, he had supported the 1898 U.S annexation of the Philippines whilst condemning the rebellion of the Philippine nationalist Emilio Aguinaldo, and strongly believed that the U.S was morally obliged to impose Western ways of life and governance on such countries, so that eventually they could govern independently.

Treaty of Versailles

In Germany, the 14 Points became a symbol of the promised basis of the peace after the war, and throughout the interwar period it common in Germany to attack the Treaty of Versailles as an illegitimate treaty with the argument being made the Treaty of Versailles was contrary to the 14 Points.

Notably, Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, which would become known as the War Guilt Clause, was seen by the Germans as assigning full responsibility for the war and its damages on Germany; however, the same clause was included in all peace treaties and historian Sally Marks has noted that only German diplomats saw it as assigning responsibility for the war. The Allies would initially assess 269 billion marks in reparations. In 1921, this figure was established at 192 billion marks. However, only a fraction of the total had to be paid. The figure was designed to look imposing and show the public that Germany was being punished, but it also recognized what Germany could not realistically pay. Germany's ability and willingness to pay that sum continues to be a topic of debate among historians.

The German-born American historian Gerhard Weinberg noted that the entire question of the "justice" of the Treaty of Versailles as a source of European discord is irrelevant. Weinberg noted that the vast majority of Germans in the interwar period believed that their country had actually won World War One with the ''Reich'' only being defeated by the alleged "stab-in-the-back" that was the November Revolution of 1918. Weinberg wrote that there was nothing the Allies could had done to reconcile those Germans who believed that Germany had actually won the war in 1918 with the reality of their defeat. Weinberg wrote that given the way that the vast majority of Germans believed the claim that their country had won the war in 1918 that it was inevitable that Germany would had made some sort of challenge to the international order created by the Treaty of Versailles, and the question of the "injustice" of the Treaty of Versailles was irrelevant as a challenge would have been made even if the Treaty of Versailles had been more favorable to Germany. Weinberg wrote the "harshness" of the Treaty of Versailles has been vastly overexaggerated as he noted that Germany lost far more land to Poland under the Oder-Neisse line imposed in 1945 than the ''Reich'' had lost to Poland under the Treaty of Versailles, and yet the Oder-Neisse line did not cause another war. In 1991, Germany signed a treaty with Poland under which the Oder-Neisse line was accepted as the permanent German-Polish frontier, even through the territorial losses imposed by the Oder-Neisse line were far greater than those imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. Weinberg also noted that the the Allied leaders at the Paris peace conference of 1919 imposed the Minorities treaty on Poland intended to protect the rights of Poland's ''volksdeutsche'' (ethnic German) minority whereas in 1945 all of the Germans living in the lands assigned to Poland were quite brutally expelled from their homes forever, leading him to ask rhetorically if the Treaty of Versailles was really the monstrous "unjust" peace treaty that the Germans claimed it to be.

Implementation

Ukraine

At the time, Ukrainian delegations failed to receive any support from France and UK. Although some agreements were reached, neither of the states provided any actual support as in general their agenda was to restore Poland and unified anti-Bolshevik Russia.The Post-Great War Settlement of 1919 and Ukraine
/ref> Thus, Ukrainian representatives Arnold Margolin and Teofil Okunevsky had high hopes for American mission, but in the end found it even more categorical than French and British:

The ''Reunion'' of Alsace-Lorraine

Under the terms of the armistice of 11 November 1918, the French occupied Alsace-Lorraine. The French wasted no time in promptly proclaiming the ''reunion'' of Alsace-Lorraine with France. Many of the Alsatians had been unhappy under German rule, and the French troops who marched into Alsace-Lorraine in November 1918 were greeted as liberators with large crowds coming out to cheer the French soldiers while waving about the ''tricolores''. At the Paris peace conference, both Wilson and Lloyd George supported Clemenceau's demand for the ''reunion'' of Alsace-Lorraine with France. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France. Under the terms of the Treaty of Locarno in 1925, Germany accepted as permanent the Franco-German border established by the Treaty of Versailles and renounced the claim upon Alsace-Lorraine.

The Rhineland dispute

At the Paris peace conference in 1919, Clemenceau wanted to see the Rhineland severed from Germany. The Rhineland with its steep hills and the broad Rhine river formed a natural defensive barrier and Clemenceau insisted that France needed the Rhineland to have ''sécurité'' after the war. Ideally, Clemenceau wanted to see the Rhineland annexed to France, but was willing to accept having the Rhineland became a French puppet state under a permanent French military occupation. Marshal Ferdinand Foch, France's most respected and honored general, argued that the French needed control of the Rhineland in order to stand a chance of victory in another war with Germany, which Foch believed to be inevitable as the Allies had defeated, but not destroyed Germany as a great power. In Foch's viewpoint, France's need for ''sécurité'' took precedence over the rights of the Rhinelanders for self-determination. As the Rhineland was overwhelmingly German in population and its people did not wish to be severed from Germany, both Wilson and Lloyd George were completely opposed to Clemenceau's plans for the Rhineland, which they claimed would create "an Alsace-Lorraine in reverse" with the Rhinelanders being placed unhappily under French rule. Wilson in particular was strongly for the Rhineland remaining part of Germany and he threatened several times to have the American delegation walk out of the peace conference if Clemenceau persisted with his plans for the Rhineland.

Under strong Anglo-American pressure, the French were forced to accept that the Rhineland would remain part of the ''Reich''. As a consolation prize, Clemenceau was offered a military alliance with the British empire and the United States, under which Anglo-American forces would come to France's aid in the event of German aggression. However, the British acceptance of the alliance was made conditional upon the American acceptance of the alliance, and the United States Senate voted against the alliance with France, thus rendering the proposed Anglo-American-French alliance null and void. Clemenceau and the other French leaders always felt that France had been "cheated" as the French made major concessions to the Anglo-American viewpoint in return for alliances that proved to be an illusion. Under the Treaty of Versailles, the Rhineland remained part of Germany, but was made into a permanent demilitarized zone and the French were allowed to occupy the Rhineland until 1935, through in fact the French occupation ended early in June 1930.

The Adriatic question

Italy had been allied to Germany and the Austrian empire in the so-called Triple Alliance. However, in August 1914 Italy declared itself neutral. On 26 April 1915, under the terms of the secret Treaty of London, Italy was promised by Britain, France, and Russia substantial parts of the Austrian empire plus Albania, the area around Antalya in Asia Minor, Jubaland (modern southern Somalia), and a small part of Egypt as a reward for declaring war on the Austrian empire. On 22 May 1915, Italy declared war on the Austrian empire. The Treaty of London entered the public domain when it was published in Petrograd by the Narkomindel in December 1917. In January 1919, Wilson visited Rome just before the peace conference opened, and met the Italian leaders. The Italian Foreign Minister, Sidney Sonnino, wrote that he was "disgusted" by Wilson's principles of national self-determination as he preferred the traditional elitist power politics of European diplomacy.

The Italian prime minister Orlando went to the Paris peace conference under the slogan "the Treaty of London plus Fiume". At the peace conference, Wilson supported the Italian claim based on the Treaty of London to have the Brenner pass as the new Italian-Austrian frontier and to add the South Tyrol province of Austria to Italy. However, South Tyrol had a German majority, and Wilson was later to say that it was a mistake on his part to support the Italian claim to South Tyrol, saying that he did not know in 1919 that the majority of the people in South Tyrol spoke German. Wilson opposed many of the Italian demands under the grounds the peoples living in many of the lands being claimed were not Italian and did not wish to be under Italian rule. In particular, Wilson was opposed to the Dalmatia region of the Austrian empire going to Italy despite what the Treaty of London had promised under the grounds that the majority of the people in Dalmatia were Croats who wished to join Yugoslavia. By contrast, Sonnino argued to Wilson that because Italy had lost half million killed in the war that he felt that there was a moral obligation for the Treaty of London to be fulfilled and that all of the lands promised to Italy should be Italian, regardless of what the people living in those lands might feel. Wilson supported the Italian claims to the Dalmatian cities of Zara (modern Zadar, Croatia) and Sebenico (modern Šibenik, Croatia) because the majority of the people in those cities were Italian, but was opposed to rest of Dalmatia going to Italy.

Sonnino's argument that Italy's war losses entitled Italy to have all of the terms of the Treaty of London fulfilled was a popular one in Italy. By contrast, Wilson became an unpopular figure in Italy. Italian newspaper cartoons depicted Wilson dressed in an Austrian uniform and sanctimoniously denying the Italian claims to Dalmatia and Fiume under the grounds of self-determination. The American embassy in Rome required a special police guard owning to Wilson's unpopularity in Italy. In particular, Wilson was opposed to the Italian demand for Fiume (modern Rijeka, Croatia), a city which Orlando was determined to see annexed to Italy. In Italy in the interwar period, it was common to speak of the ''vittoria mutilata'' ("mutilated victory") as it was argued that Italy was entitled to all of the lands promised by the Treaty of London, and that Italy had been humiliated by Wilson who used the 14 points to deny the Italians their rightful share of the victory. During the interwar period, Italian foreign policy oscillated between a desire to uphold an international order under which Italy had made gains vs. a desire to undermine it in order to make further gains. During the Fascist era, many of the professional Italian diplomats thought it was dangerous on the part of Benito Mussolini to challenge the international order created by the Treaty of Versailles as it felt that such a campaign would give Germany a strong moral basis for demanding that South Tyrol "go home to the ''Reich''", and that Italy had more to gain by working with Britain and France than Germany.

The Danzig dispute

One of the most thorniest issues at the Paris peace conference was the status of Danzig (modern Gdańsk, Poland). Point 13 called for a reborn Polish state that would have "free and secure access to the sea". Danzig was a deep water port located where the Vistula river flows into the Baltic sea, making it the principle port where goods both came in and out of Poland. Roman Dmowski the chief the Polish delegation, argued that allowing Danzig to remain with Germany would give the ''Reich'' economic control of Poland and that for Poland to be truly independent required that Danzig go to Poland. At the peace conference, Wilson explained that what he meant by Poland having "free and secure access to the sea" in point 13 was that Danzig should go to Poland. Clemenceau likewise supported the Polish claim to Danzig, but Lloyd George was stoutly opposed as he argued that it would be unjust to force a city whose population was 90% German unwillingly into Poland. An impasse emerged at the Paris peace conference with Clemenceau and Wilson supporting the Polish claim to Danzig while Lloyd-George maintained that the city should remain within Germany. James Headlam-Morley of the British delegation came up with the compromise of making Danzig into a Free City that would belong to neither Poland nor Germany. The Treaty of Versailles imposed the compromise solution of severing Danzig from Germany to become the Free City of Danzig, a city-state in which Poland had certain special rights.

German public opinion did not accept the loss of Danzig along with the loss of the so-called Polish Corridor and Upper Silesia to Poland, and for the entirety of the interwar period, it was common for Germans to speak of the "open wound in the East". In 1925, Germany signed the Treaty of Locarno under which the ''Reich'' accepted its western borders as laid down by the Treaty of Versailles, meaning that Germany renounced any claim to Alsace-Lorraine and the Eupen-Malmedy district of Belgium. Likewise under the Locarno treaties, Germany voluntarily accepted the permeant demilitarized status of the Rhineland as imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. In a memo sent out to all German embassies around the world on 28 October 1925 written by the State Secretary, Carl von Schubert, it was announced that German public opinion could accept the loss of Alsace-Lorraine to France, hence the Treaty of Locarno, but could never accept the loss of any of the former German lands to Poland. As such, the memo stated that there would never be an "Eastern Locarno" under which the ''Reich'' would accept the current German-Polish frontier. However, the memo went on to downplay the acceptance of the loss of Alsace-Lorraine under the Treaty of Locarno as it was argued that 14 Points had made the principle of national self-determination a key point of "modern diplomacy" and that the German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann believed agitation to "go home to the ''Reich''" in Alsace-Lorraine would ultimately force the French to return the region to Germany.

The March 1st Movement

The promise of national self-determination in the 14 Points led to hopes in Korea that Wilson would pressure the Japanese to restore independence to Korea, which had annexed to Japan in 1910. On 1 March 1919, a group of Korean nationalists issued a declaration of independence and appealed to the "Big Three" leaders at the Paris peace conference for support. The declaration set off what the Koreans call the ''Samil Undong'' (March 1st Movement) as over 1 million Koreans took part in demonstrations in March 1919 demanding that Korean independence be restored. The Japanese crushed the demonstrations via brutal methods as the unarmed protestors were shot down in the streets. Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George all refused the Korean appeals for help, and took the viewpoint that events in Korea were an internal Japanese matter that did not concern them. The sense of betrayal occasioned by the indifference of the "Big Three" leaders in Paris to the crushing of the March 1st movement led to some Korean nationalists to look towards Soviet Russia as an ally and played an important role in the founding of the Korean Communist Party..

The Revolution of 1919

Likewise, the promise of national self-determination in the 14 points led to a group of Egyptian politicians led by Saad Zaghloul to decide to go to the Paris peace conference to ask Wilson and Clemenceau to pressure Lloyd George to end the British occupation of Egypt, which had began in 1882. On 8 March 1919, Zaghloul and the rest of Egyptian politicians planning to go to Paris were arrested by the British military police and deported to Malta as "trouble-makers". The arrests set off what Egyptians call the Revolution of 1919 as a series of massive demonstrations broke out all over Egypt with the demands being made that Egypt's independence be restored and all British forces should leave Egypt immediately. The Revolution of 1919 did not force the British to leave, but was a seminal moment in the emergence of a sense of Egyptian nationalism. In 1922, in an attempt to end the protests, the British granted independence to Egypt, but continued the occupation.

The Shandong question

One of the most vexatious issues at the Paris peace conference was the "Shandong question". In 1897 Germany had invaded and occupied the Shandong province in China, and forced the Great Qing empire to sign a treaty giving the ''Reich'' a 99 year lease on the Shandong. Qingdao, the capital of Shandong became the principle German naval base in Asia. In August 1914, Japan entered the war on the Allied side, invaded the Shandong, and by November 1914 were in complete control of the province after the fall of Qingdao. On 25 May 1915, following a Japanese ultimatum threatening war, a Sino-Japanese treaty was signed under which it was agreed that the Japanese would take over all of the former German rights in Shandong after the end of the war. In 1917, China declared war on Germany. That same year, Britain, France, and Italy all signed secret treaties promising to support the Japanese claim on Shandong after the war.

At the Paris peace conference, it was the aim of the Japanese delegation to have Japan confirmed as the ruler of the Shandong while the Chinese delegation sought to have Shandong returned to China. On 27 January 1919, Makino Nobuaki of the Japanese delegation laid out the Japanese claim, which was based partly upon right of conquest and partly on the Sino-Japanese treaty of 1915.. On 29 January 1919, an young Chinese diplomat Wellington Koo gave the Chinese case for the Shandong. Intelligent, charming, and fluent in both French and English, Koo became one of the "stars" of the peace conference. Koo began his argument with the statement that under international law treaties signed under the threat of violence are invalid. Koo argued that the Sino-Japanese treaty of 1915 was invalid as Japan was threatening war unless China gave its assent. Likewise, Koo argued that the original Sino-German treaty of 1897 was also invalid for the same reason. Koo made much use of the 14 points as he argued that the right of national self-determination meant the Shandong should go to China because its people were overwhelming Han and wanted to return to China. Koo also used the 14 points to argue that the secret treaties under which Italy, France and Britain agreed to support the Japanese claims were invalid as all these treaties violated point one with its call for open diplomacy.

Much to Koo's disappointment, on 22 April 1919, Wilson came out in support of the Japanese claim to the Shandong as he stated "the war had been fought largely for the purpose of showing that treaties cannot be violated" and it was "better to live up to a bad treaty than tear it up" as he argued that China was bound by the 1915 treaty. On 4 May 1919, it was announced that the Shandong would go to Japan, sparking the May 4th movement, which is often regarded as the beginning of modern China. Starting on 4 May, thousands of Chinese university students marched in protest against the award of the Shandong. The sense that China was being bullied because it was weak and backward led many of the students to embark on ventures meant to reform and modernize China. China refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles to protest the award of the Shandong to Japan.

In an interview conducted in June 1969 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Versailles, Koo remarked that the Paris peace conference, which launched the May 4th movement, changed Chinese views of the West as he observed that many Chinese intellectuals believed the victorious powers of 1918 would allow China to be treated as an equal. Koo stated that the award of the Shandong to Japan had turned public opinion against the Western powers. Koo stated: "Looking back at China's stand at the Paris peace conference and the developments preceding, it appears that these events are...a turning point in China's history, both from the domestic and international point of view...One could wonder what would be the situation in China odayeither if China had succeeded in settling the Shandong question in Paris to her satisfaction or if she had signed the treaty without the reservation. These are questions which probably can never be fully answered now". Koo noted that the new regime of Soviet Russia, which denounced liberalism as a device for Western imperialism and renounced almost all of the special Russian rights in China gained under Tsarism, won tremendous prestige in China as the one power seemingly willing to treat China as an equal, which led directly to the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1920.

Notes

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External links

Text of Wilson's message to Congress outlining 14 points January 8, 1918

Text and commentary
from ourdocuments.gov


by Edward M. House

"President Wilson's Fourteen Points" from the World War I Document Archive
from the Library of Congress
Arthur Balfour's speech on the Fourteen Points to Parliament, on 27 February 1918 – firstworldwar.com
Wilson's Nobel Peace Prize is digitized. From the Library of Congress

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Speeches by Woodrow Wilson
World War I speeches
1918 in international relations
1918 in politics
1918 in the United States
1918 documents
1918 speeches
Treaty of Versailles
January 1918 events