Part of an 1918 address to Congress, Wilsonís Fourteen Points were
fourteen aims he hoped would result from World War I. Clearly one
goal of the points was to address many of the factors that promoted the
beginning of the World War in Europe and to establish a basis for a more
peaceful world; in this sense Wilson hoped World War I would be a "war
to end all war." Many of the other points concern territorial adjustments
based on the principle of national self-determination. The fourteenth
point called for the creation of a League of Nations. As you read,
think about how one might view Wilsonís goals for World War I as progressive.
I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind... diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.
II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas... alike in peace and war....
III. The removal... of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations.
IV. Adequate guarantees... that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.
V. 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....
VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all question affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an... opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development....
VII. Belgium... must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys....
VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia [Germany] in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted....
IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy... along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development.
XI. Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territory restored... the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly consul 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....
XII. The Turkish portions of the 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....
XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations... whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed....
XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific
covenant for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence
and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.