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Pres. Woodrow Wilson in the US Congress. Here delivering his War Message in 1917.
Library
of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-USZC4-10297)
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| President Woodrow Wilson |
Background
Woodrow Wilson was a professional academic and a visionary man who
wanted to make the US political system more efficient and answerable to public
opinion. He became President for the Democratic Party in 1912. During his first
term he succeeded in getting important legislation
through Congress, reducing import duties, establishing income tax, creating
the Federal Reserve System, antitrust Act, and creating the Federal Trade
Commission. Though regarding black American he accepted increased segregation
proposed by his fellow-southerners in government. And he led the US into armed interventions
in Latin America which complicated the situation for the people there.
World War I
At the outbreak of World War I, most Americans agreed to the country
being neutral in the intra-European conflict. But British blockade of trade with
the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey) and the German U-boat
attacks on US ships made it difficult to stay neutral. Wilson won a second term
on this, but basically on his results on domestic progressive and labour
issues. He proposed to the warring parties to mediate “peace without victory”
and promised to establish a League of Nations to prevent future wars on 22
January 1917. The Germans responded by extending their U-boat warfare. Wilson
went to Congress and asked them to declare war so “that the world must be safe
for democracy”. Congress agreed and the huge US production apparatus was geared
towards supporting the Allies. This would tip the balance of the European
stalemate. But still Wilson was willing to offer a liberal, non-punitive peace
to the Central Powers.
The 14 points
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| Edward M. House |
Wilson asked his adviser and long-time friend Edward M. House to prepare
a report for peace negotiations. House gathered a group “The Inquiry” of 150 political and social
scientists who analysed economic, social and political facts likely to come up
in the peace conference. They collected 2000 documents and 1.200 maps. One
important conclusion for them was to abolish secret treaties, reduce armaments,
adjust colonial claims and establish freedom of the seas. Wilson’s full speech
is here,
and the 14 points-programme follow below:
The programme of the world's peace, therefore, is our
programme; and that programme, the only possible programme, as we see it, is
this:
I. 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.
II. 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.
III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic
barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the
nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.
IV. Adequate
guarantees given and taken 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 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.
VII. 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.
VIII. 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.
IX. A readjustment of the
frontiers of Italy should be effected 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 to autonomous development.
XI. Rumania, 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.
XII. 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.
XIII. 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.
XIV. 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.
German acceptance
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| San Luis Obispo on 6 October 1918. |
Peace Nobel Prize
Wilson was awarded the Peace Nobel prize
for 1919, but he received it in 1920 because the Nobel Committee in 1919 found none of the
nominations to meet their criteria.
The Wilson Center working for research and
dialogue, and a Woodrow Wilson National
Fellowship Foundation have been established in the US.
Sources and more information
I am open to your comments and proposals.
You may send me an e-mail on
bjarte.bjorsvik@hotmail.no
Warmly
Bjarte Bjørsvik
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