“Peace without victory” Document Set

Supporting Question: What did President Woodrow Wilson mean by, “peace without victory”?

Directions:1. Read each document.2. Complete the graphic organizer in this

checkpoint.

Document A: “Peace Without Victory” Speech

Context: Woodrow Wilson’s speech to the United States Senate describing his approach to ending World War I, “Peace without Victory” (excerpts), January 22, 1917.

Source: Public domain. The full speech is available on the PBS website: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/filmmore/fm_victory.html.

The present war must first be ended; but …  it makes a great deal of difference in what way and upon what terms it is ended. The treaties and agreements which bring it to an end must embody terms which will create a peace that is worth guaranteeing and preserving, a peace that will win the approval of mankind, not merely a peace that will serve the several interests and immediate aims of the nations engaged… The terms of the immediate peace agreed upon will determine whether it is a peace for which such a guarantee can be secured. The question upon which the whole future peace and policy of the world depends is this: Is the present war a struggle for a just and secure peace, or only for a new balance of power? If it be only a struggle for a new balance of power, who will guarantee, who can guarantee, the stable equilibrium of the new

Notes:

arrangement? Only a tranquil Europe can be a stable Europe. There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace...

[The statesmen say], first of all, that it must be a peace without victory… Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand. Only a peace between equals can last, only a peace the very principle of which is equality and a common participation in a common benefit. The right state of mind, the right feeling between nations, is as necessary for a lasting peace as is the just settlement of vexed questions of territory or of racial and national allegiance.

The equality of nations upon which peace must be founded, if it is to last, must be an equality of rights; the guarantees exchanged must neither recognize nor imply a difference between big nations and small, between those that are powerful and those that are weak. Right must be based upon the common strength, not upon the individual strength, of the nations upon whose concert peace will depend…

Word Bank: national allegiance- loyalty to one’s country

Document B: “The Fourteen Points” Speech

Context: Woodrow Wilson’s speech to the United States Congress outlining his goals for ending World War I, “The Fourteen Points,”  (excerpts) 1918

Source: Public domain. Available at the website of the Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale University: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14.asp.

...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 secure once for all against their

Notes

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 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 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 program of the world's peace, therefore, is our program; and that program, the only possible program 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. 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.

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Word Bank: diplomacy- he job or activity of managing the relationships between countries armaments- the weapons and military equipment used by an army

Document C (Cartoon): “The Fourteen Principles of Wilson’s Peace to German Governments”

Context: This is an American political cartoon: “The Fourteen Principles of Wilson's peace to German government.” December, 1918

Caption: "It's the only way out, Wilhelm!"(Wilhelm refers to Kaiser Wilhelm II, the leader of Germany during WWI.)

Notes:

Document D (Cartoon): “The Dime Novel”

Context: This is an American political cartoon: “The Dime Novel” 1918

*The “teacher” in the image is President Woodrow Wilson. Dime novels were adventure thrillers that were popular with children and criticized by parents and educators.

*”To the victor belongs the spoils” is a saying that means that the winner should get any profits or benefits after a war.

Notes: