Roughly nine months after the United States made the decision to enter the war President Woodrow Wilson, in an effort to end the dispute and establish terms for peace, delivered a speech to the United States Congress. The discourse, commonly known as The Fourteen Points, was based on research conducted by a study group established by President Wilson on issues and topics which were likely to arise in an anticipated peace conference.
The points are as follows:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.
- 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 government whose title is to be determined.
- The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia. (Territorial Issues)
- Belgium must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. (Territorial Issue)
- All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 should be righted. (Territorial Issue)
- A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy. (Territorial Issue)
- The people of Austria-Hungary should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development. (Territorial Issue)
- Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored. (Territorial Issue)
- 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. (Territorial Issue)
- An independent Polish state. (Territorial Issue)
- 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.
The tenets of the speech served as a basis for Treaty of Versailles, ultimately serving as the major diplomatic work to end the war. However, In the context of what this writing series serves as, there is more to the picture. The fourteen points presented by the United States president showcased a form of foreign policymaking which goes and in hand with what was discussed in the previous chapter.
Wilsonianism, a form of liberal internationalism, was the new norm; the belief that world peace could be achieved through military invasion and humanitarian aid. Multilateral organizations like the League of Nations, or what is now known as the United Nations, were now to serve as a mediator between nations to repel the excess of power politics.
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