The 14 Points Plan by Woodrow Wilson

single spaced, 2-3 pages long, Times New Roman Font, size 12 type set, works cited page, Do NOT use quotes, formal in nature. Background sources: The West A Narrative History, Combined Volume, 2nd ed, Frankforter & Spellman, 2008, pages 625-630. http://www.learner.org/resources/series58.html
Lecture 47. The First World War and the Rise of Fascism from the link
above.
http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/interwaryears/section2.r
html

DOCUMENT TOPIC 4: THE 14 POINTS PLAN BY WOODROW

WILSON

 

SUGGESTED BACKGROUND READING:

 

1. THE WEST TEXTBOOK: PGS: 625-630.

 

2. http://www.learner.org/resources/series58.html

Lecture 47. The First World War and the Rise of Fascism from the link

above.

 

3.http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/interwaryears/section2.r

html

(copy and paste the above link)

 

THE 14 POINTS PLAN BY WOODROW WILSON

We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched

us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they

were corrected and the world secured once for all against their recurrence What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the

world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for

every peaceloving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life,

determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the

other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the

peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part

we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to

us. 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 understanding 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, openminded, 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 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 AlsaceLorraine, 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 AustriaHungary, 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 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 portions 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….