Fourteen Points The "Fourteen Points" was a statement given
on the 8th of January, 1918 by United States President Woodrow Wilson declaring that World
War I was being fought for a moral cause and calling for postwar peace in Europe. Europeans
generally welcomed Wilson's intervention, but his main Allied colleagues were skeptical
of the applicability of Wilsonian idealism. The U.S. had joined the Allies 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. However,
Wilson had not entered into the war with any affinity with the long-festering almost tribal
disputes between the Allies and Germany; if America was going to fight, he would try to
unlink the war to nationalistic disputes or ambitions. The need for high aims was made
more important, when after the fall of the Russian Regime, 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, 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. The speech made by Wilson on January 8, 1918
laid out a European 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, but
most kept their post-war goals private. The Fourteen Points in the speech were based
on the research of the Inquiry, a team of about 150 advisors led by foreign-policy advisor
Edward M. House, into the topics likely to erect in the anticipated peace conference.
Open 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.
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. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should
be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
The people of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded
and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.
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. Reaction
Reaction by the Allies 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 claimed The good Lord only had ten! (Le bon
Dieu n'en avait que dix!). 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.
After the speech, "Colonel" Edward M. 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 later the Fourteen Points were 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 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. The Treaty of Versailles had little
to do with the Fourteen Points and was never ratified by the U.S. Senate.
Influence on the Germans to surrender The speech was widely disseminated as an instrument
of allied propaganda. 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. Wilson's speech vs. Treaty of Versailles
President Wilson became physically ill at the beginning of the Paris Peace Conference,
giving way to French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau to advance demands substantially
different from Wilson's Fourteen Points. Clemenceau viewed Germany as having unfairly attained
an economic victory over France, due to the heavy damage German forces dealt to France's
industries even during the German retreat, and expressed dissatisfaction with France's
allies at the peace conference. 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 132 billion marks.
However, only a fraction of this total had to be paid. The figure was designed to look
imposing and show the public that Germany was being punished, while it also recognized
what Germany could realistically pay. Germany's ability and willingness to pay that sum continues
to be a topic of debate among historians. Germany was also denied an air force, and
the German army was not to exceed 100,000 men.
The text of the Fourteen Points had been widely distributed in Germany as propaganda prior
to the end of the war, and was well known by the Germans. The differences between this
document and the final Treaty of Versailles fueled great anger in Germany. German outrage
over reparations and the War Guilt Clause is viewed as a likely contributing factor
to the rise of national socialism. At the end of World War I, only two foreign
armies had entered Germany, and both advances had been brief and ultimately trivial – the
advance of Russian troops into the Eastern border of Prussia, and French troops occupying
Münchausen/Mulhouse for a few days, both at the outbreak of the war. Otherwise no foreign
army entered the German 1918 borders during the War. This made the peace seem unfairly
punitive to many, particularly Germans. Nobel Peace Prize
Wilson was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize, for his peace-making efforts. He also inspired
independence movements around the world including the March 1st Movement in Korea.
The Fourteen Points in rhetoric Woodrow Wilson's 14 points relates to rhetoric
because its main point is to persuade. Wilson was the first national leader to address the
world, including Western Europe, South America, and Asia through radio transmission. He hoped
to persuade the governments and people of America and their new allies to support his
vision, particularly a league of nations. Wilson's Fourteen Points address was also
broadcast into the enemy nations, where he hoped he would persuade the German and Austrian
people to pressure their governments to make peace.
Wilson's first point states, "Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there
shall be no private understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly
and in the public view." Wilson's disdain for closed door meetings and secret agreements
can surely be seen in the succeeding presidents' rhetoric.
The next piece of rhetoric in Wilson's speech is his ideas on egalitarianism applied on
a global scale and enforced by this multi-national organization. Wilson states that he wishes
for "Equality among the peoples of the world...An evident principle runs through the whole program
I have outlined. It is the principle of justice to all peoples and nationalities and their
right to live on equal terms of liberty and safety with one another, whether they be strong
or weak." The most Rhetorical influence of the speech
was Wilson's closing paragraph: "For such arrangements and covenants we are willing
to fight and to continue to fight until they are achieved; but only because we wish the
right to prevail and desire a just and stable peace such as can be secured only by removing
the chief provocations to war, which this program does remove. We have no jealousy of
German greatness, and there is nothing in this program that impairs it. We grudge her
no achievement or distinction of learning or of pacific enterprise such as have made
her record very bright and very enviable. We do not wish to injure her or to block in
any way her legitimate influence or power. We do not wish to fight her either with arms
or with hostile arrangements of trade if she is willing to associate herself with us and
the other peace-loving nations of the world in covenants of justice and law and fair dealing.
We wish her only to accept a place of equality among the peoples of the world – the new
world in which we now live – instead of a place of mastery." This is Wilson's greatest
point in his rhetoric. He gives justification to his persuasion and his reasoning of why
the world wide peace is needed. Notes
^ Irwin Unger, These United States (2007) 561.
^ This sentence and comment needs more documentation ^ Hakim, Joy (2005). War, Peace, and All That
Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 16–20. ISBN 0195327233.
^ The Concise Encyclopedia of Wold History (edited by John Bowle),publisher: Hutchinson
of London (Great Portland Street) printed by Taylor, Garnett, Evans & co in 1958, chapter
20 by John Plamenatz (no ISBN available) ^ "Woodrow Wilson: Fourteen Points". Schlager
Group Inc. Retrieved 19 October 2013. ^ "President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points".
Lillian Goldman Law Library. Retrieved 19 October 2013.
^ "President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points". Lillian Goldman Law Library. Retrieved 19
October 2013. ^ "American Rhetoric: Woodrow Wilson". Present
American Rhetoric. Retrieved 10 October 2013.