Wilson 14 Points

The Fourteen Points were a statement of war aims and peace principles that US President Woodrow Wilson laid out in an address to Congress. Although the event is listed here under 1917, the speech was in fact delivered in January 1918, shortly after the year the summary refers to, when Wilson's thinking and the Allied debate over war aims took shape. It matters because it offered a new vision of international order, built on openness, self-determination and collective security, that shaped the peace negotiations of 1919 and influenced political movements far beyond Europe.

The background lay in the First World War, which had devastated Europe for more than three years. The United States entered the conflict in April 1917, describing itself as an "associated" power rather than a formal ally. In November 1917 the Bolsheviks took power in Russia, published secret treaties made by the tsarist government with Britain and France, and called for a peace without annexations. These revelations embarrassed the Allies and put pressure on them to explain what they were fighting for. Wilson, who had long spoken of a "peace without victory," wanted to answer the Bolsheviks and to rally public opinion at home and abroad.

The speech set out fourteen proposals. The first five were general principles: open diplomacy instead of secret treaties, freedom of the seas, reduced trade barriers, arms reductions, and an impartial adjustment of colonial claims that gave weight to the interests of the peoples concerned. The next eight addressed specific territories, calling for the evacuation of occupied lands in Russia, Belgium and France, the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, adjusted Italian frontiers, autonomy for the peoples of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, an independent Poland with access to the sea, and the restoration of the Balkan states. The fourteenth point proposed a general association of nations to guarantee political independence and territorial integrity for large and small states alike.

The immediate impact was considerable. The points were widely publicized, and when Germany sought an armistice in autumn 1918, it did so with reference to them. However, Britain and France had reservations, particularly about freedom of the seas and about reparations, and the Allies attached their own qualifications before accepting the framework as a basis for peace.

At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Wilson achieved his central goal of creating the League of Nations, but many of the other points were compromised or only partly applied. The Treaty of Versailles was harsher on Germany than many Germans had expected, and the principle of self-determination was applied unevenly, leaving many minorities within new states and largely excluding colonized peoples. The US Senate declined to ratify the treaty, so the United States never joined the League. Even so, the language of self-determination inspired nationalists in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and Wilson's ideas remained a reference point for later efforts at international organization, including the United Nations.