President Woodrow Wilson’s 14-Point Plan and the

Armistice

The Armistice, 11th November, 1918

• In a speech delivered on 8th January, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson outlined Fourteen Points that would serve as a foundation for peace negotiations that would follow the end of the First World War.

• At first, however, the German government rejected the Fourteen Points.

The Armistice, 11th November, 1918

• By October, the war situation had deteriorated for the Germans to such an extent that the Reich called for an armistice to end the war, based on Wilson's Fourteen Points.

The Armistice, 11th November, 1918

• However, the attitudes of the British and French towards the Germans had shifted and hardened. Wilson believed that the Fourteen Points would soften the post-war peace conferences and that the Germans would be treated with consideration and respect by the Allies.

Principles to the 14-Points

We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which had touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world made secure once and for all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore is nothing particular to ourselves. It is that the world be made safe to live in; and that particularly it be made safe for every peace-loving 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 self-aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we clearly see that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us . . . .

Point I

• Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at: diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

• No more secret agreements.

Point 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.

• Free navigation of all seas.

Point 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.

• An end to all economic barriers between countries.

Point IV

• Adequate barriers given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

• Countries to reduce weapon numbers.

Point V

• A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

• All decisions regarding the colonies should be impartial.

Point 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 independent determination of her own political development and national policy....

• The German Army is to be removed from Russia. Russia should be left to develop her own political set-up.

Point 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 . . .

• Belgium should be independent like before the war.

Point VIII

• All French territory shall 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 . . .

• France should be fully liberated and allowed to recover Alsace-Lorraine.

Point IX

• A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognisable lines of nationality.

• All Italians are to be allowed to live in Italy. Italy's borders are to be "along clearly recognisable lines of nationality."

Point X

• The peoples of Austria-Hungary . . . should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development.

• Self-determination should be allowed for all those living in Austria-Hungary.

Point XI

• Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea.

• Self-determination and guarantees of independence should be allowed for the Balkan states.

Point XII

• The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured absolute sovereignty . . .

• The Turkish people should be governed by the Turkish government. Non-Turks in the old Turkish Empire should govern themselves.

Point 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 integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

• An independent Poland should be created which should have access to the sea.

Point 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.

• A League of Nations should be set up to guarantee the political and territorialindependence of all states.